Wednesday evening saw the return to the UK of Death Cab For Cutie, the American Indie superstar rockers who have struck a chord with millions of teenagers worldwide. They played at Brixton Academy in London to 5,000 adoring fans who queued from early in the day in blazing heat to catch their show.

Support came in the capable hands of Viva Voce, the Portland based husband and wife duo who managed to warm the crowd up suitably, though their screeching guitars did grate a bit after a while. Kevin on the drums was simply sublime: managing to hold the whole thing together whilst wife Anita Robinson’s vocals left a lot to be desired.

9pm rapidly rolled round, and Death Cab came on, playing “Passenger Seat” first up, the perfect beginning, chilled and enthralling the whole audience from the start. The heat of the Academy was forgotten, everyone straining to get a view.

“Passenger Seat” soon merged into “The New Year”, which sounded perfect. As the set progressed so did the temperatures, but it was certainly worth it. “What Sarah Says” was a definite highlight, though the security guys at the front seemed thoroughly bemused when 5,000 people sang “So who’s going to watch you die?” – I never thought I’d find humour in that song, but it did provide a bit of a highlight.

They then surprised everyone by playing some oldies that some of the younger OC fans hadn’t heard before – namely “President of What?”, “Company Calls” and “Epilogue”, which brought huge smiles to the faces of the older fans, and were some of the highlights of the set.

Throughout the band were quite quiet, preferring to let the music do the talking, though Ben did joke at one point that Wednesday was the last time they’d be playing as Death Cab. This worried everyone, until he joked that they’d be joining Babyshambles “…because you don’t have to turn up all the time”.

Then, to mix things up a bit Death Cab played their usual encore songs “I Will Follow You Into The Dark” and “Transatlanticism” towards the end of the main set, getting many members of the audience worried that they weren’t going to do an encore. “Follow you into the Dark” was a brilliant sing-along, with everyone knowing the words and providing a moment of pure beauty with everyone joining in.

Shortly after the end of “Transatlanticism” the crowd went mad for more, and whilst Death Cab went to change T-Shirts everyone was chanting for more, whilst wondering what the hell they could play if they’d already played their traditional encores. Thus they came back, and burst into an enthusiastic trio of “Marching Bands of Manhattan”, “Expo ‘86” and a raucous “Sound of Settling”.

Set list: Brixton Academy, 28th June 2006.
(Note: Not 100% sure about the order in the middle of the set)

• Passengers
• The new year
• Soul Meets Body
• Different Names for the same thing
• Title and Registration
• What Sarah Said
• Your Heart is an Empty Room
• President of What?
• Company Calls
• Epilogue
• Crooked Teeth
• I Will Follow You Into The Dark
• We Looked Like Giants
• Transatlanticism
• ———————————-
• Marching bands of Manhattan
• Expo 86
• Sound of settling