Editor's Note, 1/16

Last spring, I realized how often I studied in Bean Traders on Ninth Street when the barista greeted me one Saturday morning with this: “Hey, blue headphones!” In a characteristic moment (sorry, to everyone who’s ever tried to get my attention on the quad—I seriously wasn’t trying to ignore you), with an equally characteristic tomato red cheek flush, I popped them off my head and said, “What?” Handing me my usual coffee with milk, she replied, “I don't think I’ve ever seen you without them.”

It’s true that I always have them with me. Walking to class, working in Perkins, even laying in bed thinking about nothing at all, I want my soundtrack. Music reminds me that someone, somewhere has felt exactly what I’m feeling, arcing across the full spectrum of emotion and situation. There’s Bon Iver for rainy days and Kanye West for organic chemistry exams, Vampire Weekend for late afternoon sunshine and The Killers for remembering high school, and with the click of a play button, I can blast any of them in my head.

But then there’s live music.

There are few things in the world that make me as happy as going to a concert. Seeing a band live completely transforms the experience of their music for me. I can watch the expression on their faces as they’re performing and hear special versions of songs. Even if I don't know anyone else there, I have the intimate and rare chance to listen along with a crowd of other people.

Obviously, the band has to sound good. At the very least, their performance on stage needs to match what their album leads you to think they can do. At best, they blow your mind with how much performing live enhances each song and cause you to run home and listen to the album all over again with renewed appreciation.

One of the most fun concerts I have ever been to was Capital Cities in London in September, at a seedy but very cool club called XOYO. I entered with a few friends through a back door, which opened into a red and black interior with living room light fixtures and a gigantic raven painted on the ceiling. We proceeded downstairs into a dim area with a small stage and found that, with a little effort, we could worm our way up to the second row. The two openers were decent but not particularly memorable, and it was 10 p.m. by the time Capital Cities took the stage in retro bowling jackets stitched with their names on the front.

Once they started playing, they transformed the venue into a full-on dance party, leading us in the “Capital Cities Shuffle” (it involved hopping and spinning, a love child of the Cupid Shuffle and the Cotton-Eyed Joe). Their trumpeter proved to be one of the most talented I’ve ever heard, the two frontmen were witty and fun and it was abundantly clear that they were there simply because they loved to play music and wanted to share it with people.

That’s what makes a concert great. Music is a nearly impossible industry to break into, and it takes guts and grit to stick with it. The smallest shows can be the best because you can see how much heart the performers have, and though successful bands that can sell out three nights at a stadium are great, there’s something to be said for the nervous group with only a self-titled.

There’s a song by Noah and the Whale called “Give It All Back” (listen to it now, if you can) that directly points to this idea. It’s about the lead singer’s first band and their first awkward show, when even though the audience laughed at them, their “passion was real and profound,” and for that reason he hangs onto it: “I know, for me, that performance lives and never grows old.”

I’ve seen them in concert three times over two years and they’ve improved each time, most recently as an opener for Vampire Weekend at the O2 in London this past November. They played this song first, almost as a reminder of how far they’ve come from “practice every week in [his] bedroom.” And, as amazing as Vampire Weekend’s show was—they took the stage with Drake playing, Ezra wore a fighter pilot suit and Ray-Bans and they played every song of theirs I possibly could’ve wanted to hear—it was Noah and the Whale’s set that I can’t get out of my head.