Death Cab for Cutie in Singapore

Managed to finagle a solitary Death Cab for Cutie concert ticket, but I'm quite happy to go to concerts solo - a legacy, perhaps, of days where I reviewed concerts for the school paper. And it was worth it. To be honest, I was always a bigger Postal Service fan than a Death Cab one, if we're looking at the Ben Gibbard oeuvre. But Death Cab are a surprisingly muscular band live than they sound on their albums (or it could be that, as Adrianna was telling me, Narrow Stairs, which I've not had a chance to listen to enough of, is a much different sounding album).

There were solid performances of "I Will Possess Your Heart" and "Styrofoam Plates", in all its bitter glory, and I noticed "Photobooth" and "Title and Registration" received raucous receptions, but as you might expect, "I Will Follow You Into the Dark" was the singalong favourite. Gibbard prefaced that with "Do you like love songs? Here's a love song" - and then came truly a song to break your heart. Nice fade to black after that. I suppose it's obvious for band with "death" in its name, but put together in the context of a concert it was quite striking how much of DCFC's music deals with mortality, both literal ("I Will Follow...", "Styrofoam Plates") and in terms of the figurative end of relationships ("Tiny Vessels" etc.).

It wasn't a perfect concert by any means - I thought the order of songs in the set list could've been better - but with cult-favourite bands like DCFC you always hit up against the "when do you ever get the band coming to Singapore, and will they ever come again?" factor, with the pent-up demand for the concerts to charge the atmosphere. I mean, I remember hearing "Something About Airplanes" when it first came out 10 years ago, when it seems much of the crowd hadn't hit double-digit ages yet. Ten years to show up on this fair isle. Small wonder the energy of the band's live sound and the crowd's anticipation propelled the show.

(Side note: can I just say, as the proud owner of 2 bunnies, how much I love the video of "I Will Follow You Into the Dark" with the rabbits?)

Comments

Unknown said…
Hi there, do you happen to know the name of the last song they played. I really loved and it left a lasting impression, but no idea on which album to find it. Thanks :-)

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