Death Cab For Cutie - London Brixton Academy, 28/6/06
4/5
By: Charlie Potter
The Death Cab For Cutie crowd is comprised of myself, pretty young girls, and my girlfriend's Dad. They appear to be the sort of pretty young girls who would like to think of themselves as very deep, regardless of whether they actually are or not. As for Death Cab, my girlfriend's Dad thinks they look like geeks, whereas I'm immediately impressed to see that the guitarist is wearing an almost identical jumper to me. Makes me think these guys must be pretty cool. So, they look good, the girls love them. They're off to a good start.
Man, these guys can dance. They're doing a lot of rather angular yet subtle, repetitive dancing. Elsewhere, singer Ben Gibbard begins relating his musical observations largely regarding human relationships in a fairly direct yet melancholic way as you start picturing the girls in the audience listening to them in their room, sighing to themselves.
Meanwhile, the rest of the band are playing some well executed, upbeat, danceable indie, material drawn largely from the highly celebrated, recent album 'Plans', with earlier albums for the most part looked over. Very much head nodding music. At this point you wonder if the melancholy tone will soon become monotonous and dreary, but as the set rolls on there is no lull, which as far as one can tell is down to two things; first of all the drummer being fantastic (an inferior sticksman would have turned the crucial up-beat, danceable nature of it into something forced and tedious). Secondly, though you can occasionally forget it whilst watching the band, underneath the rolling drums and direct vocal delivery, there's real euphoria bubbling away, ready to erupt.
And at times it really does erupt into some grand, melodic, powerful yet graceful crashes, something aided fantastically by the Brixton Academy lighting. It's the only venue where I've ever noticed the lighting having a positive effect on the music - and that's something I've noticed here more than once. It helps create a mood which isn't merely melancholy, but something much more subtle. It's not self indulgent (though the music being played can occasionally lend itself to that sort of nonsense), it's observant and intelligent to the point of real positivity and mild catharsis.
I start to wonder; perhaps the only thing that would add an extra dimension to this particular band is having live dolphins on stage. They choose against, and instead end with a small supplementary drum kit arranged so that Gibbard can join in on a big tripped out drum journey, returning triumphantly to his guitar to finish the set in familiar territory. Even the boys cheer them off.
Artists in this article: Death Cab For Cutie
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