Last week was supposed to mark the first day of Spring. In typical Northeast Ohio fashion however, mother nature decided she needed to have the last laugh. Following several days of 50 degree plus temperatures, Ma Nature came roaring back and slammed the North Coast with 4 inches of snow and temperatures nearing single digits. While most of the locals stayed in and cranked the thermostat up a notch, about 500 rabid fans braved the sub-freezing temperatures to come out and see some Death and Dismemberment.

Death and Dismemberment of course being the current co-headlining tour featuring Washington D.C.'s Dismemberment Plan and the state of Washington's Death Cab for Cutie. The Death and Dismemberment Lounge Tour 2002 rolled into frigid Cleveland, Ohio and warmed the brave souls who ventured out into the cold. The cold, abandoned warehouse atmosphere of the Agora Ballroom provided an appropriate setting for two relatively unknown bands who have not made much of an impact outside of the realm of indie rock. It felt as if word of mouth was the primary sponsor for the show, as if two friends had told two friends, and so on, and so on... Suprisingly, with very little media promotion and little to no radio airplay, the bands seem to have a pretty good following in the Cleveland area. In a town where Dinosaur Rock and R&B rules the airwaves, one wondered how anybody had actually heard of these two bands. But the crowd seemed well versed on both bands repertoires.

Both bands, though stylistically different, do have one thing in common. They are creative in their own ways, and they let the music do the talking. Pick up a copy of Spin Magazine or Rolling Stone and count the number of bands that seem to have some kind of gimmick. Or they're wearing a mask. Nothing against Nu-metal, I'm sure its fine for the angry suburban white boy, but it seems like every one of those bands are hiding behind a mask. From Slipknot to Mudvayne, or to a lesser extent Tool, Disturbed, or Staind, the "now" bands that radio and MTV seem to love are all preaching the gospel according to hate. They are all angry at their parents for not hugging them enough so they wear a satanic looking mask and scream (or rap) really loud into a microphone. The formula works well and hits home with a large audience, but what ever happened to just playing the damn music? How about some music dripping with emotion and intelligent lyrics, and for gods sake, no gimmicks.

With nary a mask or even so much a tattoo in sight, Dismemberment Plan hit the stage first, showcasing songs from their new LP, "Change". Lead singer Travis Morrison, who looks like he could be your smart alecky little brother, is just as comfortable in a 500 capacity dive bar as he is on a large stage playing in front of thousands, as they did in Europe a few years ago when Pearl Jam handpicked them to open for them on a 14 city tour of the continent. Their current disc was named one of the Top 20 Albums of 2001 by the aforementioned Spin Magazine, which obviously has SOME reviewers who listened to something other than Staind, Disturbed, or System of a Down last year. The band's approximately 50 minute set also included some older songs, but the highlights were "Change" stalwarts like "Following Through", "The Other Side", and the slick opener "Time Bomb". The band interacted very well with the crowd and showed a great deal of energy, especially Erik Axelson, the bassist. Morrison had some witty banter going on throughout the show with the crowd, and toward the end invited everyone up on the stage to dance with them on the funk-laden "Ice of Boston", from one of their earliest albums. The band, known for their experimental nature, showed that side of themselves with their older songs (the sample heavy "The Dismemberment Plan Get Rich"), but also the artistic side of themselves on the "Change" songs (the melancholy "Automatic"). The Dismemberment Plan showed how versatile they could be, going back and forth between songs that funked, thrashed, and funked some more. If you had to describe their style to a friend, you probably couldn't, but garage-rock meets art-pop is probably as close as you could get. Whatever their style, they proved they could flat out rock, and left much of the crowd wanting more.

Co-headliners Death Cab for Cutie followed, and for as pumped up as Dismemberment Plan got the crowd, Death Cab would bring them back down a bit. That's not to say that they weren't as good, it's just that they are a different kind of good. The Bellingham, Washington based quartet has a much more etheral sound than the Dismemberment Plan. Their sound is based around the swirling guitars of Ben Gibbard and Chris Walla and the reverb-drenched vocals of Gibbard. Their songs are melodic and sad and filled with heartbreaking observations of some of the darker sides of life, as on the broken home anthem, "Styrofoam Plates", which features Gibbard crooning "It's not quite a stretch to say you were not quite a father / but the donor of seeds to a poor single mother / that would raise us alone / we never saw the money / that went down your throat through the whole in your belly". Yeah, they're kind of dark, and with lyrics like that, all eyes in the room focus on Gibbard when he opens his mouth to spill his tales of woe on the audience.

On this particular night, Gibbard chose to open with the first two songs from their stellar current release, "The Photo Album". First came the quiet guitar and vocal intro of "Steadier Footing", on which Gibbard wonders about "the people we've met in the last five years / and will we remember them in ten more?" On the album, this song about a chance meeting with a old friend or lover flows nicely into the road-worn reminisces of "A Movie Script Ending", but unfortunately, the transition was not as smooth live. This was not for lack of effort by the band. There was a little glitch in the sound system which resulted in some horrible feedback coming from one of the amps which took two or three minutes to correct. Fortunately, the rest of the set went without incident. Gibbard and bandmates moved quickly to the more uptempo "Company Calls", from the indie-gem "We have the facts and we're voting yes", and then slid back to the "Photo Album" imagery of "We Laugh Indoors" before throwing in the surprise "Photobooth". This brilliant song is only available on the 5 song "Forbidden Love" EP. Once again, Gibbard's lyrics provide all the imagery you need to be sucked into his world ("I remember when the nights were long / and the days when the living room was on the lawn / constant quarreling and double-speak / and our clothes in a pile on the ottoman"), and the rest of the band more than ably backed him.

If there is a flaw to the band's live performance, it's that Gibbard doesn't appear to be as comfortable playing to the crowd as Dismemberment's Morrison. He comes across as somewhat of a geek, but the crowd didn't seem to mind. They, afterall, love him for his lyrical prowess and emotional songwriting and not his ability to crack jokes in between songs. He did try to do the latter, but his "jokes" seemed somewhat lost on the crowd, which was all too happy when he and Walla would stop talking and start playing the music again. And play the music they did. "This is a song about an ugly day like today," Gibbard noted as he introduced "I was a Kaleidoscope". The uptempo song got the crowd going again and kept them warm despite lyrics such as "I put on my overcoat and walked into winter / my teeth chattered rhythms / and they were grouped in twos and threes / like a morse code message was sent / from me to me".

The rest of the set was filled with songs old and new, including the very well received "Blacking Out the Friction", on which Walla's jarring guitar riffs cascaded over Gibbard's electric piano, and the aforementioned crowd favorite "Styrofoam Plates". They also threw in a couple from the band's first album "Something About Airplanes", and a cover of Bjork's "All is full of love" for an encore. As on their albums, Gibbard live does a solid job of leaving you hanging on his every word and bringing the crowd into his world. You feel all his pain, but somehow in the end, you leave feeling things might just be all right.

Baltimore's CEX opened the show with a half hour set of testosterone charged hip-hop/rap. The skinny white rapper made his way onto the stage with just a microphone and his Apple Laptop and tried to impress the crowd with his rhyming skills. His rap style came off as a cross between the Fresh Prince and the Digital Underground with a splash of Eminem so he could sound a little hardcore. A few factions within the crowd appeared to actually be impressed, but most of the crowd just smiled and clapped politely as the rapper free-styled through songs about women, BMX bikes, and cannibis. Interesting beats, but clearly not what the crowd was expecting in an opener for two indie rock bands who pride themselves on pushing the emotional envelope with melody and lyrical depth .