Death Cab for Cutie at the Hammerstein Ballroom Oct. 19, 2005 Reviewed and photographed by Evan Sung
	Ben Gibbard

Indie rock darlings and unlikely sex symbols, Death Cab for Cutie, took to the Hammerstein Ballroom’s majestic stage for the first of two nights in the Big Apple. With their sensitive-alt-boy lyrics and surprisingly lush arrangements and rock flourishes, DCfC rocked the crowd and took them through the emotional highs and lows that their fans have come to expect.

Considering the depth and maturity of DCfC’s material, one big surprise of the night was the superabundance of high-schoolers running around the venue. Those yellow paper bracelets were not so much evidence of someone’s drinking age than simply the fact that said bracelet-wearer had actually passed through puberty. DCfC have been together for about 7 years now, and met considerable success with their recent albums Transatlanticism and Give Up (under the collaborative effort called The Postal Service. But it is undoubtedly their presence on that arbiter of mixtape cool-ness, the O.C. Television Soundtrack, which has skewed the median age of DCfC fans precipitously towards the single digits.

But am I complaining about the fact that these teeny-boppers were cheering on songwriter and frontman Ben Gibbard’s cerebral and weighty lyrics? Not really. Every moment spent luxuriating in lyrics that they don’t quite have the life experience to appreciate is less time spent pondering things like the cultural car crash that is Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey.

Chris Walla

The songs of distance and longing that made up DCfC’s last effort, Transatlanticism, are supplanted on the newest album, Plans, with a full-blown, fatalistic romanticism and songs that paint stark, almost frightening, images of the intensity of love. Songs like “I Will Follow You Into the Dark” and “What Sarah Said” are soberingly confessional songs of undying adoration. DCfC opened with satisfyingly propulsive tracks, including the wonderful “We Laugh Indoors” off of their third record “The Photo Album.” Not wasting time with chit-chat, DCfC played a good mix of old and new, and treated the audience with a long but hit-heavy 4-song encore that sent the crowd out happy. If there was one complaint, it was that the mournful silences in Ben’s uber-sensitive solo rendition of the lovely and plaintive “I Will Follow You…” were filled with raucous cheers and hollers from those younger fans clearly more excited about the band than the content of the songs.