Music has incredible healing powers. When you see live music, no matter how you feel when you walk in, if the show has done its job you leave the venue feeling invigorated and full of life, buzzed on the incredible act of music-making you've just witnessed.

These were the exact feelings I had after seeing Seattle bands Death Cab for Cutie and Pretty Girls Make Graves play live in San Diego. Because there were only two bands on the bill, each act got to play a longer set. Pretty Girls Make Graves played for a little less than an hour, with Death Cab playing for nearly an hour-and-a-half, performing just about every song off their new album, Transatlanticism. Not having known much about Pretty Girls Make Graves prior to the show, their live performance left my interest piqued. Plus, they are instantly cool by being named after a Smiths’ tune (and sounding like they’re influenced by them as well). Singer Andrea Zollo has a certain assertiveness about her -- not only in her voice, but in the way she stomps around the stage -- that really draws the crowd in. The band is touring with a new keyboard player, Leona, and played songs off their new and old albums.

Usually the air in SOMA in hot and humid, but on November 3rd the crowd seemed to be nursing an Election Day hangover. Ben Gibbard, lead singer for Death Cab for Cutie, wore a brown T-shirt with a piece of masking tape stuck to the center that read, simply, "Hillary in 2008." The band opened the show with the first track off Transatlanticism, titled “The New Year.” As Death Cab got deeper into their set, the crowd was feeding off the way these musicians were able to effortlessly get lost in their own music. While Death Cab is not music to mosh to, their songs made you want to hold up a lighter and sway back and forth with a loved one tucked close by your side.

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