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Have you ever noticed how drummers make or break a live band?

Maybe you haven’t. Perhaps you’re completely oblivious or just too busy swooning for the crooners. (What the heck is a crooner, anyway? For some reason, I imagine it is someone wearing a coonskin cap while combing their hair.)

Regardless of whether you have or haven’t noticed, drummers make a big difference in a band’s live performance. The better their rhythm, the tighter the sound. The greater their energy, the more life the band’s performance has, even during slower songs. A singer may communicate a song’s message, but the drummer communicates the emotion behind it.

This was well demonstrated by one band I recently had the chance to see, Death Cab for Cutie’s opener, Youth Group.

It is more than unfortunate that drummer Danny Allen’s sensational beats don’t leap out of headphones and punch you in the face the way they do live.

I read about this band and their album about a year ago. I gave it a listen online and wasn’t thrilled or disappointed. Judging strictly from their album, Youth Group is the kind of band that seems pretty typical and uninteresting on a first listen.

But listening to them live, with each strike of the bass drum, every crack of the snare and run down the toms, Allen let Australia’s best kept secret out of the box to the thousands of folks packed into Whitman College’s auditorium that Wednesday night.

It is more than unfortunate that drummer Danny Allen’s sensational beats don’t leap out of headphones and punch you in the face the way they do live.

Youth Group is one band that, seen in the flesh, you can’t help but love — mostly because of Allen’s fantastic ability to turn a drumbeat into magic.

Check out their song “Shadowland” below — but I strongly suggest listening to it on a large stereo with the low end dialed to 11 so as to best experience that “almost live” feel. The iPod just won’t cut it, thanks to mixing that does little to bring Allen’s drumming out of the background and into your heart where it belongs.

[mp3 download]

At Ray’s Golden Lion in Richland on this special night, I got the chance to hear my cell phone ring blast through a full PA system.

Since first hearing the Crystals Skulls’ “Airport Motels,” I have been using this song as the ringtone in my piece of crap Motorola v551 because of its energetic opening guitar riff. (If you’re interested, the song is featured in mathcaddy radio session #15.)

Crystal Skulls guitarist Ryan Philips, a fellow Tri-Citizen, is one heck of a player. If you’ve heard the album (unique, jazzy light rock with lounge singer vocals) you’ll certainly agree that Ryan has some skill. In person, at two feet away, it’s far more impressive.

The show had some interesting moments: I was distracted for a moment as the band started to play “Airport Motels” and I thought that my cell phone really was going off. And when the band invited anyone interested to come up on stage and dance with the band, a very crazy guy did just that. He was quite entertaining, especially with his Hammer pants. He had some quite serious funk in his groove.

Another item of interest from the show was the drummer. The band duplicated their album’s jazz-rock tight-but-relaxed kind of sound perfectly, mostly with his help. His rhythm was perfect and after about 10 minutes, my cousin Steve pointed out why: he was wearing headphones and listening to an iPod, which he cued up at the start of each song.

It seems he was playing the band’s album on his iPod in order to keep perfect rhythm. Talking with him after the show, he confirmed Steve’s guess.

Steve wrote quite a lot more about more the show here. (In a more timely fashion, of course.)