Death Cab for Cutie

So, Death Cab for Cutie, who knew????  Well looking around the audience it would appear that legal secretaries knew. It was heaving with shiny 20/30 something girls rocking their office 'day into evening wear' and snuggling up to their boyfriends.  It was, in fact the most coupley gig (that isn't a word is it?) that I've ever been too.

So there was I, sans boyfriend, although Janie and I have been known to snuggle if the occasion demands it, sans swishy hair and work bag and worst of all sans alcohol having made the altruistic decision to drive.  I wasn't feeling overly gigtastic.

Can I just point out that the word heaving - see above, really does not do it justice.  If you're a child of the 70s think of Bournemouth beach on a sunny day in August, add in 6.30am on the Next Sale (You can explain THAT phenomenon to me later) and multiply by your stomach on Christmas afternoon, it was THAT full!

The support band were really rather wonderful, all energy and drums and sweat and surprisingly good songs.  My eyes met with Janie's and we had but a single thought.  Who are they?

Well, now I can reveal them to be 'We Were Promised Jet Packs' from Scotland.

So, I'm not a hardcore DCFC fan, in fact I became enamoured with them for 2 reasons; the whimsical and wordy name, which originates with the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band (I kid you not) 

and the hauntingly beautiful 'I will follow you into the dark.'

There are worse reasons.

But I have become intimately acquainted with their latest CD, and so it was thrilling to hear them come onto a track from Kintsugi.
'No room in Frame'

• 1. No Room in Frame 
  2. Crooked Teeth 
  3. Photobooth 
  4. Doors Unlocked and Open 
  5. The Ghosts of Beverly Drive 
  6. Title and Registration 
  7. Black Sun 
  8. Little Wanderer 
  9. Codes and Keys 
  10. No Sunlight 
  11. President of What? 
  12. You've Haunted Me All My Life 
  13. What Sarah Said 
  14. I Will Follow You into the Dark 
  15. El Dorado 
  16. You Are a Tourist 
  17. The New Year 
  18. Cath... 
  19. Soul Meets Body 
  20. I Will Possess Your Heart 
  21. Encore:
  21. Passenger Seat 
  22. Title Track 
  23. Marching Bands of Manhattan 
  24. Transatlanticism 

• Edit setlist songs  

The whole set was a brilliant mixture of old and new, although surrealy the new is old to me and the old new.  I loved every single moment of it and trying to unpick why, I think that the answer can be explained in two words Ben Gibbard.  He is mesmerising on stage.  He has a unique voice which manages to make you think that he is singing only to you - no mean feat in a venue packed to capacity.  I actually found myself closing my eyes and getting lost in his voice during 'You've haunted me all my life'

The rest of the band are fabulous - but there is a real 'rest of the band' sense.  DCFC are, in my opinion, Ben Gibbard and his voice, that can reach inside your soul and make you feel as though you you are sitting in a smokey basement bar nursing a Jack Daniels when you are actually standing at the back of a packed venue with your nose practically pressed against the neck of the man in front.  (It was a clean neck with a smattering of freckles)  There were moments, un neck related,  that I never wanted to end.

Until the next gig, fickle creature that I am,  I remain Death Cab's biggest, and I fear oldest fan.