Shine on... Oh Ben! "Hmm... Maybe if I look really intense and troubled, that blonde girl in the cardigan will sleep with me..."

People need to eat. Everyone knows that. We had a narrow window in which to do so, and unfortunately a combination of crowds and slow service caused us to miss The Prom. Sorry, Prom. While we'd love to say that people were still talking about The Prom's set when we arrived at Metro, the truth is that it was as if they'd never been there.

If you've only heard Shiner's albums, and not actually seen the band live, you'd be forgiven for not quite understanding their popularity. Their albums make a strong case for the group's technical proficiency, but the new listener is often left wondering what all the fuss is about. You need to see them live, on a good-sized stage with a decent sound system; that's where the band truly catches fire. Their songs, which come off a little on the bleak side on record, open wide, releasing a flailing flurry of high-speed riffing. The performance crackles, its energy palpable; the sound is huge, enveloping, flattening you with its sheer power. On Metro's stage, new songs like "The Egg", "Pills" and "Stoned" took on a ferocious life of their own, ripping free of the album's constraints and filling the air with electric energy. The forty-minute set flew past, setting the bar pretty damn high for Death Cab For Cutie. Would they top this performance, or would Shiner steal the show? Ultimately, the bands are too different to truly "compete", but after Shiner's set, Death Cab seemed noticeably lacking in oomph. Fortunately, they compensated with likeable personality.

(We'll pass the article to Jason Broccardo at this point)

This summer I listened to each of Death Cab for Cutie's CDs at least once a week, unconsciously priming myself for this evening's show. Liking the records is almost easy; how could you resist Benjamin Gibbard's feathery voice or his East Coast literature champ lyrics. But a band has to have a live show to win my full respect. Death Cab's performance this evening was not a "wow!" show, like Radiohead this summer in Grant Park or The Bellrays at Noise Pop. I didn't leave the show with my head ablaze or covered in sweat from dancing, but I did discover that Death Cab for Cutie is more passionate than I'd previously thought. You have to admit that the group comes across as somewhat precious. There are dust-ups and tempers spread out over their first two albums, but on the whole I think most readers would agree with me that those two albums seem rather controlled. Death Cab for Cutie's live show is a great antithesis. The show is slightly sloppy and urgent, a little raw and angry. And Benjamin Gibbard dances.

Opening with "Steadier Footing" from The Photo Album, the band eased the audience into their set. I wasn't very settled, though. Standing immediately in front of Gibbard in the Metro's photographer pit, I was shocked at just how good he sounds live. There was a delay as the words left his lungs, moved though the PA, into my head and then through a set of calculations I was performing to determine just how impressed I was. So struck, I had to remind myself to take pictures. One by one, the rest of the band faded in. It was as if Death Cab for Cutie had decided seduction was a better way to win over the crowd than outright bombardment. Then the gears switched. "A Movie Script Ending" found Gibbard and guitarist Christopher Walla raising the pitch of the room by racing their guitars through the choruses. Three songs later, during "We Laugh Indoors" (the third of seven songs from The Photo Album), I realized that Death Cab For Cutie had unknown levels of "rock". Bassist Nicholas Harmer set pace with feedback and rumble, and the rest of the band followed right behind. Every thought involving the use of "twee" and Death Cab for Cutie together in the same sentence disappeared. Their records are gentle, yes, but on stage the band opens up. Death Cab for Cutie wisely create a difference between the recorded sound and the live sound, making each important in different ways, effectively fighting the battle for your heart on two fronts. "Photobooth" and "Underwater" simmered things down mid-set, and Gibbard and Walla interjected funny bits of banter between the songs, exposing a sense of humor only hinted at on record. Beginning with Gibbard's admission, "We didn't write this," Walla tweaked a familiar melody from his guitar. It wasn't until Gibbard reached the third line of the opening verse that I realized they were performing "Here Comes the Rain Again" by the Eurythmics (but then, he's obtuse that way. Everyone else over 25 figured it out a bit sooner. -- Ed.). This could easily have been a tongue-in-cheek cover, but Death Cab took it seriously and made the song their own; the guitar-burst chorus almost made it sound like one of their own songs. The time-pressed set closed with one last speed ramp from "Blacking Out the Friction". It was a good note on which to go out -- one last bit of peppy pop to close the night. I would have been happy without an encore, but the group reassembled on stage and launched into my favorite of their songs, "Fake Frowns". The song lives on the power of its refrain, and Gibbard made the most of singing it over drummer Michael Schorr's bed of cymbal rides and crashes. Watching bassist Harmer stomping in place to the rhythm, I found proof as to why the song is so moving. The band seems to take great joy in playing it, and an enthusiasm like that is contagious. The night finally ended with a low key version of "405", played only by Gibbard and Walla. Coming after the one-two punch of "Blacking out the Friction" and "Fake Frowns", the song was almost anticlimactic. Perhaps that was intentional though -- one last tweak by a band I've always underestimated, till now.

Article by Jason Broccardo and George Zahora. Photos by Jason Broccardo.