It was a rainy Monday night, but that wasn’t enough to keep the crowd from lining up early at the venue for a stellar double bill of West Coast indie rock luminaries featuring Death Cab for Cutie and Jenny Lewis. The Starland Ballroom (located in Sayreville, NJ) doesn’t tend to host bands on my radar, so I was ecstatic to attend this show happening off the beaten path right in Central Jersey. DCFC and Jenny Lewis have both been prolific in putting out music since the early aughts, some of which is among my all time favorites (especially the albums Transatlanticism and More Adventurous). Jenny Lewis also collaborated with Ben Gibbard in The Postal Service where she provided backing vocals on Give Up, the project’s sole LP release (check out our coverage of their 2013 reunion show here).
Jenny Lewis played a short opening set of songs mostly from her 2019 LP On The Line, but she highlighted past collaborations with performances of “Silver Lining” (the lead track from Rilo Kiley’s Under The Blacklight) and “Happy” (from 2006’s Rabbit Fur Coat). She’ll be back in the area on a headlining tour this October with a show at The Met Philly.
The first time I’d seen DCFC live was back in 2006, after the release of their excellent major label debut LP Plans. Going into this show, I was hoping the band would play mostly their old school stuff from my (and their) carefree days of yore – that ended up not being the case, but Gibbard and co. did not disappoint. While their set heavily featured 2018’s Thank You For Today LP (including lead single “Gold Rush” [music video below]), they mixed in a healthy dose of songs from albums as far back as Transatlanticism. Highlights were songs from 2008’s Narrow Stairs, which included “Long Division”, “No Sunlight“, “I Will Possess Your Heart”, and “Cath…” – watching these songs performed live made me realize how underrated an album it was at the time of its release. Gibbard is also a more animated and frenetic performer than ever, which is something I completely didn’t expect (must be from all of the running).
They ended the night nearly the same way they did back at that show in 2006 – they played a 4-song encore starting with “I Will Follow You Into the Dark” (followed by “When We Drive”) and closed out with “Tiny Vessels” and “Transatlanticism”. With a few more years of life under their belts and having experienced a little more heartbreak in that time, the choice of songs took on new meaning this time around.
Death Cab will be continuing on tour through the end of summer and will be joined by Car Seat Headrest for most of their West Coast dates – see all of their upcoming tour dates here. Keep on scrolling to see more photos from the show.
