As 2003 rolled around, it turned out to be more than a new year for Ben Gibbard; it was a pivotal year. Following a self-enforced break from the relentless touring schedule of a young indie band, the Death Cab For Cutie frontman was an integral part of not one but two albums for two different groups. Both turned out to be so influential that, 20 years later, he’d be able to play them back to back to back and in their entirety to audiences across North America and Europe.
The Postal Service @ All Points East (Phoebe Fox)
Up first, on the last night of All Points East 2024, is the one from his day job: Transatlanticism. It’s not Death Cab’s biggest seller, but certainly their breakthrough; several tracks are still regulars on tour, like album opener The New Year. The song they’ve performed most live (777 times at last count) hasn’t faded over the past two decades and remains an explosive start to the set, keeping the momentum going through the immediately more intimate Lightness.
There’s always a risk to performing albums front to back, but this one’s been sequenced to balance out moods and tempos. So Title And Registration, beginning with what must be the most Gibbard lines Gibbard has ever written (“The glove compartment is inaccurately named/ And everybody knows it/ So I’m proposing a swift orderly change”), sees an immediate return of pace and familiarity — if not intensity. That returns with a rushing Expo ’86 and instantly singable The Sound Of Settling. The latter has thousands of voices belting out “bop-ba bop-ba” with Gibbard while the rest of Death Cab (bassist Nick Harmer, drummer Jason McGerr, and multi-instrumentalist Dave Depper and Zac Rae) bounce around to play the sunniest tune in the band’s catalogue. Smiling is inescapable before the grittier, despairing, cold Tiny Vessels turns down the brightness once more, continuing the ebb and flow of an album crafted around its eight-minute title track.
Not just the centrepiece, it remains the standout. Tonight is no different. Through the opening half with its audience-backed refrain of “I need you so much closer”, Gibbard and the band, all dressed in black, build and build tension; they ratchet it up even further during an extended instrumental, before finally releasing it with a rousing “So come on, on”. It’s almost impossible to follow, but a shortened, delicate Passenger Seat (performed by the singer and Rae on keys) becomes a coda and reset before Death Of An Interior Decorator sees a return of three-minute indie rock heartache. Dedicated to The Decemberists, We Looked Like Giants (“It’s about having sex in a car,” says Gibbard) brings back the big guitar riffs, before A Lack Of Color (just vocal, acoustic guitar, keys, and subtle percussion) closes out the album and set quietly.
Fifteen minutes later, when two of the musicians (Gibbard and Depper) return to the stage, things couldn’t be more different. And that’s not just because they’re now wearing all white (including matching wrist sweat band for the singer) or there are a few more lights. Now joined by Jenny Lewis and Jimmy Tamborello, they launch into the soaring The District Sleeps Alone Tonight to audience euphoria. This is The Postal Service. Where Death Cab have a certain reputation (earnest music, dense lyrics), the side project that only ever produced one album (Give Up) has no such constraints. Built on Tamborello’s dance-leaning beats, its 10 tracks (again performed in sequence) sound far more celebratory — which has an obvious effect on the quartet performing them and on the masses in Victoria Park. Although the producer keeps a relatively low profile behind banks of synths and computer equipment, Depper spends a lot of time grooving at his keyboard while Lewis (on vocals, guitars, keys, synth drums, smiling, and dancing) clearly relishes not having to lead her own band.
But it’s Gibbard who’s most unleashed. Playing far less guitar than he’s used to, he’s free to move around the stage; march in unison with Lewis during the perfectly named Such Great Heights; dance with her in Grease‘s You’re The One That I Want style on full-blown duet Nothing Better; or play climactic drums on the run of Clark Gable (with its massive vocal ending), We Will Become Silhouettes (complementing the huge electro beats), and glitchy This Place Is A Prison (alongside Lewis’ guitar hero moment). Clearly, bringing this studio project to the live arena and recreating these tracks with a full band has made everything sound bigger and more exciting than on record. Nowhere else is this more apparent than on the last two songs; where Transatlanticism fades out, Give Up ends on a high.
After Gibbard shares his memories of the first time The Postal Service played London (crappy venue; The Flaming Lips‘ Wayne Coyne watching from the balcony), the group dive into Brand New Colony with its Super Mario-style eight-bit riff. Lewis’ voice is front and centre throughout the song, which goes through a sea of guitars and (courtesy of McGerr) drums before closing with the crowd singing the line “Everything will change”. Natural Anthem is even more different from the album version. The drum and bass rhythms are still in place, but everything else has been turned up to 11. Depper, now on guitar, fiddles with feedback; Lewis blasts a harmonica into a microphone; someone plays a walkman into a guitar pickup; and McGerr beats away at his kit, only making the long instrumental intro sound more frenetic and the sudden ending more shocking.
The encore starts off a little more quietly — a duet between Lewis and Gibbard (also on acoustic guitar) as they steal back Iron & Wine‘s folky rendition of Such Great Heights — before the full combined line-up of Death Cab For Cutie and The Postal Service come out for a bright take on Depeche Mode‘s Enjoy The Silence. It’s the perfect end to not just a Sunday on the Summer bank holiday, but a day stuffed with other artists who’ve been able to marry critical acclaim with (varying degrees of) commercial success. Like Phoenix, headlining the West Stage on the last date of their Alpha Zulu tour just a few days after appearing at the Olympic Games closing ceremony. Leaning on 2008’s Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, their sleek electro-rock set includes the likes of that album’s Lisztomania and 1901; recent releases including the slinky Tonight and hip-hoppy hands-in-the-air banger Alpha Zulu; and even the Daft Punk-goes-calypso title track of the underrated Ti Amo. Of course the French band look as chic as they sound; rhythm guitarist Christian Mazzalai is even wearing a blazer; their visuals are breathtaking. The keyboard player and drummer (with a red neon heart inside his transparent bass drum) are on a platform set into the backdrop so it looks like they’re actually playing inside the screen, an impression only amplified by neon lights creating a parallax effect. At other times they’re backed by stunning visuals like a French palace, a classic portrait animated so that its head bops, shooting stars, or lightning.
Backed by a static logo, Gossip instead put the focus on Beth Ditto‘s towering voice. But her vocals (’60s soul with all the power, range, and lived experience) and personality (incredibly chatty and uncensored between songs) are more than enough to carry their first London show in five years. Also part of their first tour since releasing their first album in over a decade (Real Power) they use it to show off new songs like Act Of God (vintage soul with 2000s guitar) and Crazy Again (delicately pretty with big, throbbing choruses). These have little trouble fitting in with the stylistic disco-indie-punk mash of the trio’s back catalogue, well represented tonight by the likes of Heavy Cross, Standing In The Way Of Control, and Love Long Distance.
Certainly less danceable but no less watchable are The Decemberists from Portland, Oregon. Genial frontman Colin Meloy is engaging in a liberal arts college professor way (complete with collared shirt, cardigan, and clip-on sunglasses). He mock-admonishes the crowd for clapping before a track ends (“It’s not over yet”), feigns surprise when nobody cheers at the mention of London in a lyric, and unites the audience by reminding them of their shared mortality before having them sing along to a song about a cemetery. But Meloy’s real skill on stage is leading the five other crack musicians through his musically diverse and adventurous songs — from the galloping folk pomp of The Infanta and country stylings of William Fitzwilliam to the mariachi-flavoured Oh No! and Death Cab-adjacent muscular indie rock of Make You Better.
Also representing the Pacific Northwest, in what’s becoming something of an Oregon/Washington state musician convention, are Sleater-Kinney. In a set dominated by new album Little Rope, singer-guitarists Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker (backed by three touring musicians) show off the group’s evolution by dropping in the occasional thrasher from 2005’s The Woods. The Fox still tears out your ears; Jumpers perfectly pairs their voices while highlighting Brownstein’s punk-rock guitar playing and Tucker’s gigantic vocals; and the pounding Entertain does exactly what it does on the tin. Bury Our Friends (from 2015’s No Cities To Love) is all anguish, while the title track of the St Vincent-produced The Center Won’t Hold leans into its industrial vibe. Of the newest offerings, Needlessly Wild rages, Dress Yourself fuses synths with their rock roots without sounding forced, the immediate Say It Like You Mean It seems to be written for outdoor festivals like this, and closer Untidy Creature transforms a primal riff into a dramatic epic.
Earlier on the main East Stage, Yo La Tengo manage something similar with Double Dare as singer-guitarist Ira Kaplan‘s wiry riff stretches out from a noisy reverb-drenched intro to shoegazey bass jangle and ultimately a furious guitar solo. Elsewhere in their set, Kaplan thrashes through Fallout and brings harmony to Tom Courtenay, while drummer Georgia Hubley adds her ethereal voice to the pastoral Aselestine and bass player James McNew pours his honeyed vocals over the shoegazey Stockholm Syndrome. Almost simultaneously, over on the other side of the park, The Lemon Twigs are up to something similar, albeit with Beach Boys harmonies and a bit more guitar jangle. At one point, after the big instrumental end to What You Were Doing, one of the D’Addario brothers comments: “That was kind of like Teenage Fanclub, right?” just as the real deal are playing a few hundred metres away. The Scottish jangle-poppers are in fine fettle today; judging from the smiles on Norman Blake‘s face during the long instrumental end of set opener Home, he’s feeling right at, well, home. So much so that he’s happy to introduce a song as special as About You with: “This one’s from another one of our LPs. I can’t remember which one.” It’s all part of a sunny, uplifting, low-key set built on the chiming guitars and vocal harmonies of Blake and Raymond McGinley. Just a pity it’s not possible to be in three places at once, but such is the embarrassment of riches on a day headlined by Death Cab For Cutie and The Postal Service.
Live review of All Points East 2024 featuring The Postal Service and Death Cab For Cutie @ Victoria Park London on 25th August 2024 by Nils van der Linden. Photos by Phoebe Fox, JRC McCord, and Greg C Holland (courtesy of All Points East).
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