The joint headliner tour seems to be rising in popularity. A couple of years ago you had New Order and Pet Shop Boys sharing a bill in the US, then a few months ago I saw Suede and The Manic Street Preachers in Cardiff Castle. Maybe in a struggling live environment, having two bankable names is safer for ticket sales? Maybe nostalgia sells? Whatever the case, tonight we have two more Death Cab for Cutie and Postal Service and it makes sense, as they share a key member in songwriter and singer Ben Gibbard and represent different sonic faces of his work. Also, both are celebrating retrospectively and in full a pair of enduring naughties albums Translatlanticism and Give Up, both of which were released in 2003, just eight months apart.
“It’s good to be back in Cardiff second home to some of us and home to two of us.” Offers Teenage Fanclub singer and songwriter Norman Blake in a nod to the presence in the band of Welshmen Euros Childs on keyboards and Steven Black aka Sweet Baboo on bass. Launching into the jangly sweetness of ‘About You’ that serves up ladles of lovelorn smile inducing melodies from their Grand Prix album. ‘I Don’t Want Control Of You’ is decorated in and infused with lilting Beach Boys-style harmonies and a wistful melody that enraptures you in wanting to hold onto a fleeting joy and love.
Someone behind me calls Teenage Fanclub ‘generic’ but I think they are still mighty fine, spinning embers of melody into bittersweet shots of jangle pop, and as they launch into arguably their best song ‘The Concept’ from their Creation released 91 classic Bandwagonesque, you can’t help but toe tap and sing along to the “oh yeahs.” The Fannies are still on fine form.
Whereas Death Cab For Cutie’s Transatlanticism came out twenty one years ago and is considered the eight-time GRAMMY nominated band’s breakthrough record. It debuted in the top half of the Billboard 200 chart, is platinum certified, and was named “one of the decade’s most important albums” by NPR.
All five of Death Cab For Cutie enter the stage to a rapturous reception from a bigger than I expected turn out, declaring themselves modestly as “a band from Seattle” by Ben Gibbard, framed in strobe lights. The energetic opener ‘The New Year’ bursts from the speakers catching your energy as they restlessly attack their instruments and chant into their mics. Smouldering with big riffs that have the embers of the power pop and grunge they grew up on, lockstepping to bounding drums. Its a soundtrack to New Year’s let down and woven with a richly, charming and uplifting vocal. The awesome ‘The Sound of Settling’ powered by thwacking drum strikes, sinewy guitars and a heart on the sleeve hookiness, that was so beloved of the Pitchfork era, it sounds like it holds the blueprint for American indie rock for at least a decade after its release, Arcade Fire eat your heart out.
“She was beautiful, but she didn’t mean a thing to me” sings Gibbard on the more intimate heart on the sleeve moments of ‘Tiny Vessels.’ He is now bathed in a singular spotlight and flanked by the rest of the band, for these more moving downtempo songs. Having not been familiar with every part of their back catalogue before this show, I was impressed by the urgency of the first part of the set. The second half of the set hits a bit of a more muted lull as songs pass me by a bit more, but its fair to say these heartfelt well worn songs are warmly received, before The Postal Service perform Give Up.
Postal Service return to the stage decked in all white, like space cadets of sound, the group formed of Ben Gibbard, producer Jimmy Tamborello, and Jenny Lewis and a rotating crew of musicians, produce an enrapturing voyage back to their 2003 album Give Up, portions of which are inspired by the break-up of what Gibbard called his “first real adult relationship.” Upon release the record wracked up some serious success, it became platinum-certified, but it is also Sub Pop’s second highest selling record – second only to Nirvana’s Bleach. It sat at no.1 in Billboard’s Top Electronic albums chart for 19 weeks on release
Speeding into the intersection between indie pop melodies and electro pop beats some call it indietronica, they deliver pulsing, heartfelt, tunes that will get your body moving framed in bright light of minimal strobes. Although if you are over thirty as I and much of the audience are tonight, it’s more a careful sway and hand in the air than body popping!
“It seems so out of context, in this gaudy apartment complex” sings Gibbard hauntingly and delicately on ‘The District Sleeps Alone Tonight’ painting vivid couplets that draw scenes of departure and the blinking neon lights of the cities skyscape shutting down for the evening. His voice lofted above by backing vocals luminous synths, glitches and skittering drum machines. It’s a humming symphony to the dusk of the city.
‘Such Great Heights’ is the obvious highlight with a professorial keyboard plonks, a carousel of synths, and a clicking beat fired by jagged guitar licks, that leave space for its bright enveloping melodies. It’s a perfectly pieced together jigsaw of electro pop, that houses a really empathic and reflectiveness, that fills your heart up to the brim.
‘Nothing Better‘ is an inviting two hander: Jenny Lewis’s vocal and guitar sparingly adding a pleasing levity to this ode to falling in and out of love and hoping to one day grow old together, the twitchy cyclical heartbeats and discordant jabby synths are lent a romantic melodrama by the entwined vocal dance. They finish their set joined by all the members of both bands for their version of Depeche Mode‘s ‘Enjoy the Silence‘, a song that closely echoes their carefully crafted brand of reflective electronic pop.
It has been a night of two halves, two distinct moods, both married by Ben Gibbard’s sensibility, open, big hearted and with a knack for melody that runs across the sonic lines. Not every note hits the right key but as we flood into the evening, I hear one man talk about waiting until he was 31 years old to hear these songs live. Clearly, this will be a night some will never forget.
