Death Cab for Cutie, Chicago Theatre, Chicago, Illinois

It seems that I've recently seen a string of artists who I had previously seen live a handful of times. Continuing in this trend, this evening’s performance at the Chicago Theatre marks my fourth time seeing Death Cab for Cutie, plus another show by frontman Ben Gibbard’s side project, The Postal Service. Death Cab is comprised of the aforementioned Ben Gibbard (vocals, guitar, piano), Nick Harmer (bass) and Jason McGerr (drums). Last year, founding guitarist and producer Chris Walla departed from the band after recording their eighth studio album. The album’s title, Kintsugi (2015), is derived from kintsugi, a type of Japanese art involving fixing broken pottery, and as a philosophy of treating breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise. To my understanding, this is at least in part a reference to Walla’s departure, in that the band would have scars and something missing from his departure, but it could still be something beautiful. For their current tour, they added two additional musicians on guitar and keyboard.

Our seats were located house right, twenty to twenty five rows from the stage. It was only upon arrival that I realized that except for Neil Young, for which my seats were in the house right balcony, ever other of the six shows that I had been to at the Chicago Theatre were located house left. We arrived is the midst of The Antlers warming up the crowd. They were quite good.

Death Cab took the stage a bit before nine, opening with a track from Kintsugi, “No Room in Frame.” Gibbard then asked the audience to rise to their feet and launched into “Crooked Teeth,” a crowd favorite. Everyone stood throughout the rest of the show. They played a pretty solid mix of songs from all their albums, at least a couple from nearly all of their studio albums, though they skipped anything from We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes (2002). Kintsugi had more songs than any other, but the set certainly wasn't overloaded with them. There were many fan favorites, especially selections from Transatlanticism (2003) and Plans (2005). Gibbard did a solo performance of “I Will Follow You into the Dark” and I believe one other song. During the former, many in the audience pulled out their phones to record video of the performance. The band ended both their main set and their encore with their two most slow-building songs, “I Will Possess Your Heart” and “Transatlanticism.” Both were very satisfying. At the end of the show, Gibbard, as always, left the stage very sweaty.

I had been somewhat disappointed with some of the previous Death Cab shows that I had seen. My first was a DAR Constitution Hall in DC, which is a terrible venue and frequently leads to disappointing performances. The second show was at Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, which was a pretty good show but performed with a string orchestra, so a bit difference of an experience. The third was a set at the inaugural Firefly Festival, for which we were far away from the stage and Ben Gibbard was sick and didn't sound very good. All and all, this was a much better performance; my favorite of those that I've seen.

Setlist:
No Room in Frame
Crooked Teeth
Why You'd Want to Live Here
Doors Unlocked and Open
The Ghosts of Beverly Drive
Grapevine Fires
Black Sun
Little Wanderer
Photobooth
President of What?
You've Haunted Me All My Life
What Sarah Said
I Will Follow You into the Dark
El Dorado
You Are a Tourist
The New Year
Cath...
Soul Meets Body
I Will Possess Your Heart
Encore:
Your Bruise
We Laugh Indoors
The Sound of Settling
Transatlanticism