RIMAC is screaming. It’s 9:45 p.m. and the lights just went black ‘mdash; thousands of students wait, as a blue light pulses, cameras at the ready, eyes on the empty stage filling fast with clouds of purple smoke.
‘Hey, what’s going on,’ Ben Gibbard says, leaping forward as Death Cab for Cutie slams into place and Nick Harmer pulls a pounding bass buzz into the ring. ‘405’ soars over the freeway but expires at the crowd, shimmering like a heat wave and just as intangible. It’s so easy to start with a SoCal song ‘mdash; Gibbard hits the high notes with angelic clarity ‘mdash; but it’s harder to stop traffic.
Organ-pounding drumbeats save them, bringing it back to the body on ‘Your Heart Is An Empty Room.’ Every swooning fangirl knows it (and the guys all hum it under their breath), but the lingering lyric is ‘possibilities.’ Death Cab’s giving us too much to think about ‘mdash; a too-short guitar solo and Gibbard’s long, flappy locks distracting even as he channels Cobain.
So the mob murmurs. Cameras take a back seat as fans wait, nervously, for the moment worth their money and the long-ass ticket line. Then, Gibbard smiles. Like a nervous college kid playing his first gig (complete with the Obama guitar sticker), he starts to shake. Hands fly upward to clutch the mic for ‘The New
Year,’ an unexpectedly epic version that powers Chris Walla’s electric guitar to full-throttle rock. Gibbard’s a nervous bird, and he almost trips over his amp in excitement. He pumps the crowd, jumping forward and back, fingers a blur from shirt to mic to hair. It’s a move he’ll replicate for the heaviest songs; the heaviest of which (‘We Laugh Indoors,’ ‘Crooked Teeth’) ‘mdash; complete with thundering drums and sky-opening riffs ‘mdash; stun many a fan into silence. Who knew Death Cab could rock so hard?
Compared to notoriously sleepy albums, it’s almost unbelievable how much energy reverberates on stage. Everywhere you look, Gibbard’s falling off an amp, Walla’s breaking into a solo and Jason McGerr ‘mdash; in show-stealing fashion ‘mdash; is whaling on the drums like they owe him money. The crisp catalog takes tracks from every album, mixing fan favorites (‘Photobooth’) with classic spotlights (‘I Will Follow You Into the Dark’). And on that last song, the crowd drowns Gibbard out ‘mdash; everyone knows every word, and the air vibrates with a singular crystallized emotion.
‘I need you so much closer,’ Gibbard trembles on the last encore. It’s his love song to the concertgoers, and they respond, reaching out across the space that separates them from the gleaming, smoking stage.
INTERVIEW: DEATH CAB BASSIST NICK HARMER
GUARDIAN: What has inspired you lately? What bands, books or artists?
NICK HARMER: I just finished this Guns N’ Roses biography called ‘Watch You Bleed’ ‘hellip; Amazing! That band was crazy, and so off the rails! That was actually pretty inspiring to read about rock days of yore.
G: Do you ever think Death Cab For Cutie would be that kind of band?
NH: No, we are definitely not anywhere near the trajectory of Guns N’ Roses. Not even close. It’s just so radically different that I can’t even imagine how people make it through the world sometimes. Our songwriting ‘mdash; and life on the road ‘mdash; is far more, far more nerdy. I think probably the guys in Guns N’ Roses would shake their heads in shame. ‘I thought you guys were in a rock band, what’s going on?’ And we like sitting online and blogging, running on the treadmill and actually, we don’t drink, so there you have it.’
G: You’ve been with DCFC for over a decade now. How have your relationships with everyone changed? Or have they since the beginning?
NH: Yeah, you know, in a lot of ways they haven’t changed at all. We’re still a group of guys from a small college town. We’re just trying to figure out how to make music and follow our dream together. I still see my friends, you know, like the day that we first met. There’s not a lot that has changed on some levels ‘mdash; and then, on other levels, everything has changed. We’re all adults now, some of us have families. It’s an interesting thing to grow older and into adulthood and also juggle that with being in a touring rock band. That’s provided its own set of really exciting adventures.
G: What’s the hardest thing about it?
NH: The travel. Honestly, that’s the hardest thing about it because there are so many great things about being in a band. But when you’re away from home, sometimes ‘mdash; when you’re 200 days away from home in a year ‘mdash; that kind of travel schedule puts a real strain on a lot of relationships that are outside of this. You need a real patient group of people waiting for you at home. That’s always the hard thing ‘mdash; you’re away for a lot of stuff. We’re getting better at [it]; we’re learning how to do it.
G: You keep a blog called ‘Colony Collapse’ in which you post amusing pictures, deep thoughts and guiding principles. What is a guiding principle or motto of your life, or of your art?
NH: Actually, if there’s ever been a creative motto that I’ve ever subscribed to ‘mdash; like if I could get it tattooed on me or something like that, even though I’d never do it ‘mdash; the motto comes honestly from the Muppets movie. It’s really had this resonance with me, a line in one of the songs right at the end of the movie when they’ve all finally come to Hollywood and they realize their dream and they’re making their movie and it all comes crashing down ‘mdash; because it’s just so big, and there’s just so much love and so much happiness that they can’t control all of it.’ ‘Life’s like a movie/ Write your own ending/ Keep believing/ And keep pretending.’ That little line in the song is exactly how I feel daily ‘hellip; And that’s kind of juvenile, I suppose, on some levels, but that’s really hard to do when you get older, and you have more responsibilities and a life to juggle. Real world expectations with the dreams you had when you were a little kid.
G: What’s something that people wouldn’t usually know about DCFC?’
NH: I think our albums are always kind of mellow, kind of quiet, real personal affairs. I think people are always surprised when they come see us live, when they see how exuberant and energetic we can all be when we’re playing. We enjoy rockin’ out, jumpin’ around and having a good time ‘hellip; It’s all about dancing and having a good time. Our show’s a celebration.