Thursday 07/07/11 Death Cab For Cutie @ O2 Academy Brixton, London

A sold out crowd for Death Cab For Cutie’s performance at the O2 Academy Brixton is a great thing to see. Having already toured their latest album, ‘Codes and Keys’, to the rest of the UK, this evening is the last on their schedule before a well deserved break. With folks of all ages making their presence known, whether by queuing hours early to be assured of a front row spot, or by helping to shift hundreds of T-shirts at the merchandise desk, it’s obvious that tonight is going to be a special performance.

Starting things off slowly, the support act, Seattle-based The Head And The Heart, give the audience something a little different than the main act. At first coming across as a strangely peculiar collective with a wide knowledge of instrumental experimentation, after a few songs and a bit more confidence, the group come across as a Mumford & Sons meets Noah & The Whale with an extra helping of Laura Marling. Quite literally getting more and more applause as their set goes on, the folk group have definitely won some new fans tonight. If their lead singer Josiah Johnson can grow a little more in confidence, and if Jonathan Russell, the band’s other singer, gets a hold of his eccentric stage movements, the gorgeous Charity Rose Thielen (violin, vocals) and the rest of the band could start a siege for the top of the charts just like Mumford.

Opening in darkness to a tasty instrumental, Death Cab For Cutie are seen amongst the shadows strumming, drumming, and strolling across the stage. When ready the band opens to ‘I Will Posses Your Heart’. With a hypnotic bass line that seems to go on and on and on, early crowd participating in the form of continuous on beat clapping soon forms. Full of energy, Ben Gibbard plays to a packed house with an excitement in his voice like the type heard in a 16-year-old’s on leaver’s days, or the type heard in a jackpot lottery winner’s voice when their numbers come up. It seems as if the forthcoming break might be a welcomed one, and with a wife like Zooey Deschanel to go home to who would blame him?

With not much room to breathe in between songs, the quick switch between each track, speedy dimming of the house lights, and the incessant guitar change between songs - in an almost machine gun clip reload motion, gives the show a theatre feel to it. With not much in the way of communication with the crowd, Ben’s constant Status Quo-esque jerking back and forth, and of course delivery of the band’s back catalogue, is enough on this particular evening. Going through their hits ‘Grapevine Fires’, ‘Meet Me On The Equinox’ – from the Twilight: New Moon’ soundtrack, and new tracks ‘Underneath The Sycamore’ and ‘Doors Unlocked And Open’, Death Cab fans cannot say they didn’t get a full show.

Show highlights include the heartwarming ‘I Will Follow You Into The Dark’, sung solely by Ben Gibbard to an adoring audience who hung off of each of the front man’s words, and the performance of the band’s latest single ‘You Are A Tourist’ – to which all of the audience knew the words. All in all the show was full of non-stop musical fun and frolics. For years Death Cab For Cutie have sustained medium popularity this side of the pond, their new album ‘Codes and Keys’ should be reason enough for that popularity to rise considerably, and if it isn’t, tonight’s performance definitely will be.