Synths ring out across Troxy as five figures stroll onto the stage. Then they’re off. Jason McGerr counts Riptides in with his drumsticks, the lights find Ben Gibbard, and the Death Cab For Cutie frontman immediately launches into the song’s restless momentum. It is the second of two nights at London’s Troxy, with the Seattle indie-rock veterans touring their 11th LP, I Built You A Tower — their first record on ANTI- following 22 years with Atlantic. Yet there is little sense of a band looking backwards. Tonight, new material sits naturally alongside songs stretching back more than two decades.
Death Cab For Cutie @ Troxy
The evening opens with Florida’s Pool Kids, whose energetic, emotionally charged set proves a fitting prelude. When Death Cab For Cutie arrive, Riptides sets the pace: driving, expansive and full of momentum. Gibbard is rarely still, bouncing around the microphone before crossing the stage during instrumental passages and reaching out towards different corners of the room. Roman Candles, from 2022’s Asphalt Meadows, follows before the opening bars of The New Year shift the atmosphere towards one of the band’s most enduring eras.
Gibbard welcomes the room with characteristic simplicity: “This band is called Death Cab For Cutie, we’re from Seattle, Washington, it’s an honour to be here.” There is barely time before Punching The Flowers arrives, Nick Harmer’s bass locking into Jason McGerr’s pounding drums as the new material immediately proves it can hold its own.
The band then dip into Kintsugi, pairing The Ghosts Of Beverly Drive with the slower, atmospheric Black Sun. As the latter fades, Gibbard is briefly left exposed with the song’s closing lines hanging in the air. “Thank you so much! Thank you, thank you,” he says, before taking in the surroundings. “It is so nice to be back here in London, playing the Troxy, what a fucking great room, holy shit.”
He introduces I Built You A Tower, referring to the band’s new home as “the Mighty ANTI- Records”, before launching into the title track. Its layered arrangement fills the room without sounding out of place beside the band’s older material. Photobooth then reaches back to the early days. Spotting younger faces in the room, Gibbard jokes that he wrote it “long before you were born”, drawing a laugh before Pep Talk brings the set back towards the present.
A story about encountering the father of a young touring musician leads into Rand McNally, prompting Gibbard to reflect on his own early years travelling, playing music and discovering the world with friends. The song unfolds with a slow, shimmering drive, Dave Depper and Zac Rae layering guitars and keyboards around Gibbard and Harmer. Then comes a simple question: how many people are seeing Death Cab For Cutie for the first time? “OK!” Gibbard responds to the sizeable reaction.
The 50-year-old Washington native reaches for an acoustic guitar and begins I Will Follow You Into The Dark. The Plans classic needs little introduction, but he soon turns the moment into something more personal, recalling how, as a younger musician, he resented singers who handed their songs over to the audience: “I was always like, ‘Fuck that!’ I paid, good, hard-earned American dollars to hear you sing this song and now, I’m gonna do your job?”
Death Cab For Cutie @ Troxy
Now, he says, he understands it differently. His deal is simple: they sing one chorus, and he’ll give them another. The exchange works because Gibbard allows the song to breathe rather than turning the moment into a grand gesture. He listens, then returns to the microphone for his promised chorus. “Very nice!” he tells the room. It’s one of the night’s most natural and memorable exchanges — funny without feeling rehearsed, and genuinely affecting without becoming sentimental.
The band then switch gears with I Will Possess Your Heart. Harmer’s bass establishes the pulse, McGerr gradually drives it forward and the guitars build around the extended arrangement as Gibbard moves to the keyboards. Stone Over Water follows before How Heavenly A State brings a sharper, heavier edge. Gibbard then gives Pool Kids another shout-out, calling them “our homies from Florida” and “the best thing to come out of Florida since Disneyworld”.
Cath… provides another jolt of recognition before Crooked Teeth turns the song into one of the set’s most kinetic moments. Gibbard prowls the front of the stage while Harmer, McGerr, Depper and Rae keep the track moving at full tilt. Synths and electronic beats then bring Trap Door into the mix. You Are A Tourist follows, its driving bassline and layered guitars giving Gibbard another chance to roam before McGerr’s marching-band-style drumming closes it out.
The return to Plans comes with Soul Meets Body, introduced by Gibbard with the warning that it contains “some singalong bits”. When the familiar “ba-da ba-da-ba-ba” section arrives, he hands it over and lets the room carry it.
Later, Gibbard looks back to the band’s early UK visits, recalling shows played to around 200 people when they first came over in 2001. Tonight, the scale is very different. “It’s all of you guys now, and it’s all because of you.”
The main set closes with Foxglove Through The Clearcut, introduced as a “folk tale of the American west”. Its darker, atmospheric textures provide a striking final change of pace, spoken-word passages floating over synths before the drums gradually lift the song towards its conclusion.
They return with Title Track, travelling all the way back to 2000 and We Have The Facts And We’re Voting Yes. A Movie Script Ending follows, then The Sound Of Settling delivers one final burst of restless energy. And then Transatlanticism. It is the right ending for a night built around movement between past and present. Guitars, keyboards, bass and drums gradually gather around Gibbard until the song expands beyond the stage, filling Troxy with one final, expansive swell. Before it begins, Gibbard acknowledges familiar faces from the two London shows and offers a final message: “We’ll see you somewhere down the line. We love coming here.”
Death Cab For Cutie @ Troxy
After almost three decades, Death Cab For Cutie have no need to live inside their history. I Built You A Tower sits naturally beside Plans, Transatlanticism, Narrow Stairs, Kintsugi and Asphalt Meadows, while songs once written in bedrooms and rehearsal spaces have become part of the lives of the people hearing them tonight. Death Cab For Cutie don’t simply revisit the tower they’ve built. They keep adding to it.
Live review and photography of Death Cab For Cutie @ Troxy, London by Kalpesh Patel on 26th September 2026.
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