Death Cab For Cutie played Philly’s Met – 9/29
Ben Gibbard and company hit Philadelphia late last month on their fall tour, with support from Thao.
Noise Floor took a road trip last month, in what I assure you was a totally logical plan to catch The Gaslight Anthem up in Niagra Falls (to make up for missing them in a hometown conflict against Stereolab) and Death Cab out in PA (to make up for missing them in a Niagra conflict with the Boston date). In short, lots of driving, but it’s fun to see shows in new cities!
Philly’s Metropolitan Opera House is a great example of why. A historic space dating back over 100 mixed-use years, its current concert renovation opened in 2018 and retains a balance between grandeur and practicality. The room’s GA floor/seats upstairs configuration brought to mind a Worcester Palladium that someone cared about, as my partner astutely pointed out at the show, and its confines were a lovely fit for hosting Philly’s date on Death Cab’s Asphalt Meadows tour.
The trek is so named for their new and rightfully acclaimed September release, which finds the band welcoming new textures into their sound under the direction of guru producer John Congleton and coaxing forth some of frontman Ben Gibbard’s best songs in years. The fivesome looked and sounded energized under the record, which they played nearly all of, bolstered by a top-notch light show and a crowd that was very much game for the new songs and old.
Death Cab have always been a tight live outfit, but this was perhaps the best I’ve ever seen them, enthusiastically running through classics like “The New Year” and the still-creepy but still-groovy jam “I Will Possess Your Heart.” Those staples – and especially the requisite “I Will Follow You Into the Dark,” which Gibbard has probably performed as his solo acoustic singalong at every show since its release – could threaten to grow stale over time, but still brought the punch. The new songs, post-rock-ish set-closer “Foxglove Through the Clearcut” being a prime example, did too.
Part of my initial excitement for this particular tour stemmed from my longtime favorites Low handling opening duties, but sadly the band have had to remain off the road for much of this year due to drummer/vocalist Mimi Parker’s ongoing cancer treatment. While we wish Mimi the speediest of recoveries and hope to see the Low/Death Cab team-up ride again (the bands, though perhaps an unlikely pair on paper, have toured together and collaborated in years past), Thao (formerly of The Get Down Stay Down) stepped in to play a super fun and spirited opening set in their place.
Scroll down for photos of the whole night below.
