Live Review: Death Cab For Cutie

There's something special about going to see a show at the Opera House. Its huge angular sails and cavernous performance spaces lend a distinct kind of magic to a night. As we sat in the Concert Hall, the air was filled with the anticipation of a few hundred former emo kids and indie rockers awaiting the arrival of Death Cab For Cutie.

Protesting that he didn't know what they were doing in such a huge setting, Ben Gibbard likened it to playing a piano recital when he was a kid. Despite this, the band filled the Concert Hall with a huge sound, mixing new tunes and old faithfuls like Passenger Seat and Your Heart Is An Empty Room.

Though this year's tour promotes their newest offering, Kintsugi, songs from earlier albums stood apart, enhanced by the phenomenal acoustics of the space — especially the complicated arrangement of I Will Possess Your Heart. With a mammoth two-hour set, happily, despite their 18-year existence, Gibbard's voice is unchanged and just as emotive. Similarly unchanged is his side fringe, which was staunchly settled in 2005.

Being the first tour since the departure of keys player Chris Walla, it was an interesting dynamic on stage, going from moments of intimate call-and-answer with the audience in Soul Meets Body to jamming that looked like something from a stadium show.

Listening to Death Cab is like coming home for a lot of people. Death Cab's music is so deeply connected to a certain time or feeling in people's lives, and that really came through in those more emotional moments like You've Haunted Me All My Life and I Will Follow You Into The Dark. This journey to Feelsville couldn't have ended on a better note, as they signed off with Transatlanticism.