You’d probably expect the crowd for a band with “a considerable amount of songs about death” to be a miserable bunch, but far from it. The Troxy’s packed with jovial city types slamming pints, a surprising touch of Friday night normality in the little bubble of sensitivity and emotional honesty that Death Cab For Cutie create around them. It’s the first night of two in the capital on their ‘I Built You A Tower’ World Tour, and somehow, in the midst of their songs of loss and grief, they conjure a communal warmth that unites us.
One of the evening’s many idiosyncrasies – and we’re not including the fact that Troxy insist on keeping half the house lights on – is the fact that ‘I Built You A Tower’ doesn’t feature that heavily in their setlist. ‘Riptides’ makes for an elegantly lo-fi ease in to the evening, and the catchy moodiness of ‘Punching Flowers’ reveals the darkness that was lurking in the background of their latest releases, but ‘I Built You A Tower (a)’ shows exactly why they’re not solely focusing on the new record. With its swift, candy floss-light bridges, it fits satisfyingly in between the dismissed omens of ‘Black Sun’ and the nostalgic crash of ‘Company Calls’s like a Jenga block. That’s the whole point of tonight: we’re celebrating the coming together of the puzzle pieces that Death Cab For Cutie have been crafting for decades.
“We don’t have hits, but we do have classics,” jokes frontman Ben Gibbard, and these are the songs where the magic lies. Acoustic, with each note like a candle lit in memory, ‘I Will Follow You Into The Dark’, is breathtaking. “How do you guys feel about audience participation?” he giggles halfway through, but the song’s spell never breaks and as we chorus, the warmth of familiarity and friendships that cross oceans sweep over us. Each bitter line of ‘Pep Talk’ feels like its preserved in amber as we sway and reverently hum along, and the tender storytelling of ‘Stone Over Water’ weaves and flows through disaster and rebuilding. The devotion in the air during ‘Soul Meets Body’ is tangibly magnetic, and carries so much individual meaning to so many in the crowd. As a band, they’re incredibly aware of themselves and how each single chord shift can affect us, and they carry that weight like its a privilege. When they dip a toe into improvisation, such as the post punk breakdown that boosts ‘Grapevine Fires’, they do so with glee, like they’re presenting us with a treat as much as they are revealing an ambitious and experimental side to themselves which we rarely see on record.
When Death Cab go happy, they do so with style and aplomb. The squeals of excitement that accompany ‘Cath…’ make for a fairground atmosphere that complements the rock angle they accentuate live, and ‘Crooked Teeth’ sparkles with festival revival energy. ‘Here To Forever’ is all vibrancy and dynamism on the home stretch, elastic hope and dreams stretched taut that we bounce along. This is a show with so many moments where you want to break the illusion for a second, to look around the room and really focus on the band, just to preserve each memory in your mind to carry it with you like a photograph in your wallet. The upbeat songs fly past, but carry just as much emotional resonance as the songs of longing and despair, and it’s testament to how much Death Cab For Cutie refuse to be pigeonholed as “that band that writes sad songs”.
Tonight flows quickly, and Death Cab For Cutie manage to stack up decades of songs with no distractions from their mission to present the best of themselves in the order that they’ve possibly been building to since day one. Most of the crowd will be back tomorrow for their second show, but there’s a beauty in knowing that you can only experience an arrangement of songs laden with emotion that glow like molten gold once. Maybe tonight isn’t unique, but a band like Death Cab For Cutie who can inspire so much faith and love across wastelands of emotion surely must be.
Kate Allvey
Photo: Shervin Lainez
