Death Cab Invade Halifax Dalhousie Campus

Post-secondary life never seemed so good until Death Cab For Cutie played on the Dalhousie University campus this past Friday. It was a sublime night for those lucky enough to have texted their way in (or shelled out hundreds of dollars online for a ticket) to the private show.

Death Cab were playing at Dalhousie because the school won the Rogers Wireless Campus Battle that saw thousands of post-secondary students across the country text-vote for the band to play their campus. The fortunate university would then cast ballots into a draw to determine which students actually got to witness the show.

As a Dalhousie undergrad student, I'd seen the posters all over campus advertising the chance to have Death Cab come play, and I thought to myself, "As if." Death Cab For Cutie wouldn't play Halifax, let alone the small theatre in the student union building above the cafeteria's slop and stale coffee posts. The McInnes Room hosts events like The Vagina Monologues or Margaret Atwood when she comes to town. Not Death Cab. But there they were.

Openers The Midway State didn't add much to the event. I would take an evening of Atwood's wacky wordplay anytime over listening to these Torontonians. But when Ben Gibbard walked onto the stage with an acoustic guitar around his neck and plucked the opening notes of "I Will Follow You Into The Dark," all my pessimism dissipated.

A thousand-or-so voices joined in on the chorus singalong. Calgary may be more than 5,000 kilometres away from Halifax, but Canadian pride swelled as Gibbard sang "You and me have seen everything to see, from Bangkok to Calgary."

The Bellingham, Wash. quartet ploughed through "Soul Meets Body," "The New Year," "The Sound Of Settling," "President Of What?" and "I Will Possess Your Heart" with skilled craftsmanship.

Guitarist Chris Walla mouthed along to every word, while bassist Nick Harmer hammered through each melodic note. Drummer Jason McGerr created the larger than life atmospheric element of the show. The drawn-out instrumental introduction to "I Will Possess Your Heart" saw Harmer's fingers flying across the neck of his bass as the moody blue spotlights accented the song's hypnotic effect.

Gibbard apologized profusely between songs, saying he was sorry it had taken Death Cab so long to come to Nova Scotia. Earlier, the band wandered the port town, bought some records and took in the foggy day. They even performed "My Mirror Speaks," a track from the Open Door EP (a five-track disc of B-sides from the Narrow Stairs sessions) that was released last Tuesday.

After more than a decade of playing together, Death Cab For Cutie deliver live, and almost seamlessly recreate their recorded performances on stage. Better yet, the band tackled every song with a raw energy and unbending enthusiasm that pretty much made you forget the Rogers corporate propaganda that hung all over the place.

The set list wandered through their discography from their latest full-length, Narrow Stairs, all the way back to 1998's Something About Airplanes debut. The encore's meteorological "Transatlanticism" was the best. It perfectly capped the monumental night and perfectly scored the dripping rainy walk home.

Here's what Death Cab For Cutie played:

"I Will Follow You Into The Dark"
"A Movie Script Ending"
"The New Year"
"Crooked Teeth"
"President Of What?"
"My Mirror Speaks"
"Company Calls"
"Grapevine Fires"
"Summer Skin"
"I Will Possess Your Heart"
"Title And Registrations"
"Cath..."
"Long Division"
"Soul Meets Body"
"The Sound Of Settling"
"Marching Bands Of Manhattan"

Encore:
"Little Bribes"
"A Diamond And A Tether"
"No Sunlight"
"Transatlanticism"