Death Cab for Cutie cruises through crowd-pleasing show

Photo by Brandon Dill, buyitnow

Singer Ben Gibbard performs with Death Cab For Cutie at the Orpheum on Saturday.

While an untold number of next-big-things have traipsed across the national stage since they began a dozen years ago, Death Cab For Cutie have remained a steady, under-heralded force on the alternative music scene, cranking out a steady stream of recordings marked by the lovely melodies and sinuous lyrics of frontman Ben Gibbard.

Both qualities were on display Saturday night, as the band played a sold-out show before a crowd of about 2,300 at the Orpheum, but there was also a surprising muscularity that kept the Cuties' filigreed compositions from collapsing on themselves.

Photo by Brandon Dill

Singer Ben Gibbard performs with Death Cab For Cutie at the Orpheum on Saturday Night.

Photo by Ryan Russell

Formed in 1997, the Seattle-rooted band Death Cab for Cutie includes Nicholas Harmer (left), Ben Gibbard, Chris Walla and Jason McGarr.

Gibbard and his three bandmates started the night on a curiously downbeat note, with the early shoe gazing track “Employment Pages” and “Your Heart Is An Empty Room” off their 2005 smash Plans. But with the slight Chris Walla’s outsized guitar break on “Crooked Teeth,” the band found its inner rock gods.

The night’s set list was a smattering of songs from throughout the band’s long career, which includes six full-length studio albums and five EPs. It was the release of one of the latter, The Open Door EP, that occasioned the band’s appearance, and early on they worked in the bobbing rocker “Little Bribes” from the collection.

Cutie played plenty of old favorites as well, with the Transatlanticism cut “Title And Registration” and “Cath,” one of band’s more straight-forward, big hook numbers from last year’s Narrow Stairs, getting particularly warm responses from the audience. By the time Gibbard gave the rest of the band a break to deliver a tender solo acoustic rendition of “I Will Follow You Into the Dark,” the crowd had become full-blown participants, singing along to every word.

That song proved to be a breather before a breakneck last stretch that included perhaps the group's best-known song, “Soul Meets Body,” and the swirly guitars and pounding drums of “Bixby Canyon Ridge.” A three-song encore modeled the larger main set, starting slow with the excellent new acoustic rocker “A Diamond And A Tether,” through “A Movie Script Ending,” and literally building to a crescendo on the epic, visceral “Transatlanticism.”

Preceding, and nearly upstaging, Cutie were the Cold War Kids. The California quartet played a wondrously dark and cinematic set. The first half was dominated by selections from their new, second record, Loyalty To Loyalty, with the band banging away in the shadows to menacing, bluesy material like “Welcome To the Occupation” and “Something Is Not Right With Me.” For the last three songs, they turned back to their first record, with more sonically varied — if no more merry — songs like the liquor-drenched family drama “We Used to Vacation” and “Hospital Beds.”

Syracuse six-piece Ra Ra Riot opened the evening of music. The band’s 2008 full-length debut, The Rhumb Line, was one of last year’s most precious-sounding releases, thanks to the chamber pop flourishes of cellist Alexandra Lawn and violinist Rebecca Zeller.

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