Death Cab for Cutie finally can take a well-deserved break.
The Northwest pop-rock group has been on the road for weeks, if not months, but Sunday’s concert at Marymoor Park in Redmond, Wash., brought the long trek to a close with two hours of great music and a laid-back vibe that soothed body and soul.
“This is the last show in a very long stretch of shows,” said singer-guitarist Ben Gibbard. “But we’ll be back soon.”
The band featuring Gibbard, bassist Nick Harmer, guitarist and keyboardist Chris Walla and drummer Jason McGerr kicked off the second show in a two-night stand at Marymoor with “Marching Bands of Manhattan” and “The New Year,” a pair of songs expressing the band’s heart-on-a-sleeve songwriting. (Read an interview I did with Walla last December.)
The 20-song set featured such songs as “Crooked Teeth,” “Summer Skin,” “Grapevine Fires” and the deeply romantic “I Will Possess Your Heart.”
The capacity crowd, spanning at least two generations, grooved to the band’s dark romanticism and bouyant melodies. Frontman Gibbard kept the patter to a minimum, but brought laughter when he suggested that the concert venue’s unique aroma resulted from a blend of pot smoke and fumes from the preparation of Philly cheese steak sandwiches in the concession area.
The music wafted through the amphitheater like a soft summer breeze, and more than a few concertgoers seemed content to lie on their backs and stare at the blue sky while Gibbard and company spun through their repertoire of concert favorites.
Gibbard dedicated a tender, solo version of the sweet-afterlife song “I Will Follow You Into the Dark” to Ra Ra Riot, which was finishing up its last night of touring with Death Cab for Cutie. “They have busted their asses,” Gibbard said of the Syracuse, N.Y., indie-rock band. “It’s been a real pleasure to have them.”
Gibbard introduced “Little Bribes,” from the recent “Open Door” EP, as “a warning of sorts.” The song is a cautionary tale about Sin City and its fantasies, or so it seems.
The songs “Cath,” “Pictures in an Exhibition,” “Expo ’86” and “Sound of Settling” filled the latter half of the show.
The band, which appeared recently on “The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien,” returned with a stirring encore of “Brothers on a Hotel Bed, “405,” “Soul Meets Body” and the signature “Transatlanticism.”
In addition to Ra Ra Riot, the show included a middle set by The New Pornographers, the Canadian-bred indie-rock band with a gritty but complex sound. The band’s short but vibrant set featured such songs as “Myriad Harbour” and “The Spirit of Giving.”