Photo credit: Maggie Vaughn/Shepherd Express
Death Cab For Cutie only make two kinds of songs: great ones and boring ones. That’s not meant as a knock—most bands should be so lucky to hit the highs Death Cab has over their nearly 20-year run. But when the band is off, they can be a snooze, and lately they’ve been a little off. Their latest record, 2015’s Kintsugi, was the least notable of their career, so like most Summerfest headliners, they’ve begun to carry a sense that their best days are behind them, especially since the departure of Chris Walla, the keyboardist/producer who helped distinguish their sound. There’s still time for Death Cab to prove that notion wrong, of course—one mediocre album doesn’t necessarily mean the well has gone permanently dry—and their razor-sharp set Saturday night went a long way toward doing just that. If their spark has dimmed in the studio, they’re more than making up for it on stage.
The set wisely distanced itself from the new album in favor of fan favorites, which they doled out one after another, starting with Transatlanticism's immortal opener “The New Year.” Between Ben Gibbard’s bookish voice and openly sentimental lyrics, Death Cab are so easily dismissed as soft that it can be easy to forget they’re first and foremost a rock band, and Saturday night they delivered an incredibly satisfying rock show, complete with dramatic light cues, flashy solos and cocksure showmanship (Gibbard is fond of raising guitars triumphantly over his head after finishing a big song). Within three songs Gibbard’s oxford shirt was drenched in sweat—by the end it was more perspiration than fabric—and he never stopped working the crowd. There’s a reason Death Cab are one of the only big indie bands from the mid-’00s still comfortably signed to a major label: They're pros.
Opener Julien Baker's sad, sparse folk songs made her an incongruous fit for a festival that’s first and foremost about the joy of drinking in public. The massive outdoor stage was a far cry from the silenced rooms that the 20-year-old has been packing since releasing her devastating debut Sprained Ankle last fall. From the back of the Miller Lite Oasis she was barely even audible, but as the sun began to set, the crowd fell into her wavelength, quieting down enough to marvel at raw-nerved renditions of tearjerkers like “Rejoice” and “Brittled Boned” (the big screen captured one young fan in the front row openly sobbing). It must have been a significant show for Baker, a child of indie rock who’s long touted her Death Cab fandom. It turns out the respect was mutual. During their set, Gibbard praised her record and dedicated “Cath,” the band’s best song, to her.
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