A Mötley Crüe tour could be sponsored by, say, Jack Daniels, suggests Ben Gibbard from the Royal Albert Hall stage. Death Cab For Cutie’s current tour, he continues, should be sponsored by Boots.
It’s a line that draws the intended laughs, but completely downplays what the frontman’s faced over the past month. After having to cancel three shows last week, Gibbard revealed in a heartfelt statement that he’d completely lost his voice. The reasons included a tight, post-pandemic schedule that left little time off for recovery between shows. Oh, and he’d caught a cold that attacked his vocal chords, three gigs into a 22-date European and UK trek. Not exactly ideal for a singer.
“On more occasions than I’d like to admit, I was backstage mere minutes before our set time wrestling my voice to open up,” he wrote. “And thankfully in pretty much every case it did. Until it didn’t.”
It definitely did on the final night of the tour. Perhaps there are a few brief flashes early on where Gibbard’s vocal loses its bright precision, but maybe the medical backstory has made me hear things that aren’t there. (If anybody else has noticed, they don’t seem to care. And this is a live performance after all.)
What’s important is that the flickers of imperfection — imagined or not — don’t last long. What’s even more important is that the singer gives his all throughout. And he’s not afraid to leave his voice exposed. Under the circumstances, lesser performers might have taken out the a capella portion of Black Sun, the stripped-down bit of Crooked Teeth, and especially the falsetto of Rand McNally. And an entire song performed solo, with just the accompaniment of an acoustic guitar? Forget about it. But Gibbard leans into his traditional unplugged rendition of I Will Follow You Into The Dark. As ever, it’s a singalong set highlight made all the more special tonight as it plays out against the backdrop of hundreds of mobile phone torches lighting up the iconic venue.
It’s a venue Death Cab For Cutie have never headlined before, so it’s not just the singer-guitarist who rises to the occasion. The entire band seem thrilled to be there — Nick Harmer and Dave Depper literally leaping with their guitars; drummer Jason McGerr suddenly pulling focus with a flashy fill — as they navigate the twists and turns of a 26-year career.
There’s the drama of The New Year with its push-pull dynamics, the yearning mid-2000s guitar rock of Cath…, the indie chime of A Movie Script Ending, the weightless Northern Lights (all bass jangle and Zac Rae’s shimmering keyboards). There’s the sparkling Your Heart Is An Empty Room (a perfectly adorned folk song in the classic Paul Simon tradition); the intense, almost desperate, We Looked Like Giants; and an irrepressible The Sound Of Settling (complete with prerequisite “pa pa” singalong).
There’s the menace of The Ghosts Of Beverly Drive (simultaneously both bleak and optimistic), the bright optimism of a transcendent Soul Meets Body (cue more singing along), and the full 10-minute spectacle of slow-burning, all-grooving I Will Possess Your Heart.
Into this are dropped the diverse offerings from confident new album Asphalt Meadows. Written during lockdown through a process described by Gibbard as “chain-letter songwriting”, it’s the band’s most collaborative release yet. So album- (and set-) opener I Don’t Know How I Survive has more swing, quiet-loud-quiet extremes, and handclaps than anything else in their back catalogue. Roman Candles is easily one of their most urgent, anxious-sounding two minutes, its impact only heightened in the live setting. And Foxglove Through The Clearcut pairs quiet, spoken verses with ethereal choruses and a fierce instrumental ending.
Of course, the night climaxes with a jubilant rendition of Transatlanticism, sounding perhaps its most emotional in 20 years. (Maybe it’s the venue, maybe it’s the relief of reaching the end of a fraught tour, maybe it’s the shared love in the room.)
So there’s absolutely no doubting Gibbard’s sincerity when he declares: “This isn’t just a band highlight. This is a life highlight.”
Death Cab For Cutie
Royal Albert Hall, London
29th March 2023
Photo: Simon Reed
- This article originally appeared on Louder Than War.
Nils van der Linden 