Death Cab: The Best Bet in Atlantic City

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Honestly, we were feeling pretty ho-hum heading into Sunday night's Death Cab for Cutie (MySpace) set at the House of Blues in Atlantic City. The poker table had not been kind to us, dealing us a seemingly endless string of Q-5, 9-2, K-3, etc. type hands. Our meal at the House of Blues restaurant was meh—nothing more, nothing less. And St. Vincent was pretty much dreadful. So we were in need of a pick-me-up, but Death Cab's music isn't exactly cheerful. Fortunately, what the band lacks in sunshine, it makes up for with plain old quality and consistency.

Death Cab caught us off-guard right from the get-go, in more ways than one. First, they opened their set with "The Employment Pages," a mellow and unusual choice for an opener. More surprising, though, was the impressively svelte Ben Gibbard, who has obviously (and healthily, we hope) shed more than a few pounds in the few months since we last saw the band. (Perhaps he lost the weight specifically for the House of Blue show, which was broadcast live in HD on AOL TV.) Gibbard now looks less like an awkward software engineer and more like a well-kempt hipster.

Once we got past our initial shock, we settled in to enjoy what we knew we'd get—a solid, if decidedly un-flashy rock show. The lack of pomp and circumstance is appropriate for Death Cab; the band's appeal is based on the emotion and honesty of their music rather than mind-blowing musicianship. When you hear them, and especially when you see them, perform their music, you can tell that they've actually lived (or at least thought about living) the songs they're playing—and you have, too.

When it comes to seeing Death Cab live, they're not going to blow you away with an incredible stage show. And if you're not a fan of their full catalog, you should mentally prepare yourself for some songs you're not familiar with, because their setlists invariably span their entire catalog of albums. Their concerts aren't a hit parade, and that's fine. First, Death Cab doesn't have enough "hits" to fill up an entire concert. But leaving that aside, devoting their full set time, even at its relatively short hour and forty-five minutes, to the albums that have brought them to their recent prominence (Transatlanticism, Plans, and Narrow Stairs) would require omitting way too much outstanding material from their often under-appreciated and overlooked earlier albums. And along those lines, we have to recommend that you pick up Death Cab's first album, Something About Airplanes, when it is reissued in November—that album's "Champagne from a Paper Cup" was the undeniable highlight of Sunday night's show.

So maybe our whole day at the House of Blues wasn't a complete success. But when the concert that ends the evening is so good, the money we lost at the poker table doesn't sting quite so bad.

Setlist: The Employment Pages / A Movie Script Ending / The New Year / We Laugh Indoors / Crooked Teeth / Grapevine Fires / Company Calls / Company Calls Epilogue / Soul Meets Body / I Will Follow You Into the Dark / I Will Possess Your Heart / Cath... / We Looked Like Giants / Long Division / The Sound of Settling / Bixby Canyon Bridge