If you carefully mix green and orange colours together you get olive. Lazily, one might get a murky brown. No one wants brown. Not tonight, thank goodness. Tonight, we get olive. Tasty.
Green, I mean, Pool Kids run on stage with an energy that belies the decade worth of touring the young band already have under their collective belt in order to make their name. The right people have paid attention, and they have got onto one of their dream tours and are now playing one of the biggest cities and venues on that tour.
They smash through a set in under thirty minutes. Looking around it’s clear there are some in the know, but many to whom this is their first introduction. It’s always jarring to see this and reminds me that I am unusual by just how much music is front and centre in my life. Emotionally I incredulously ask myself how these people don’t already know the band. Then, the last vestiges of my common sense and objectivity shuffle into view and remind me that most people I meet won’t even have heard of the headliner, let alone the Florida quartet.
Pool Kids. Photo: Diana Revell
They play a handful of tracks from their self-titled LP and Easier Said Than Done – a condensed set from a larger one they had played the previous night, headlining Signature Brew in Haggerston. Despite being such an accomplished, seasoned band already, the sense of excitement and fun pour off the stage, quite figuratively as if they were young children joyously splashing about in a pool. Christine treats us to some leg kicks into the air that I half believe may send her flying backwards while the other three look effortlessly cool as they prise smiles from the unsuspecting crowd.
Pool Kids. Photo: Diana Revell
With a half-an-hour break between support and headliner, everyone does their customary gawp at the Troxy. It really is a beautiful building. But Capitalism will be Capitalism, and it’s the only venue I can think of in London where the bars and other modern trappings of a venue look decidedly out of place and unwelcome. Not that it stops the epic queues for the bars, the toilets, and some entranced by the television screens advertising cocktails or forthcoming gigs.
The deal with the devil is that Troxy being a venue often used, and used often, still couldn’t protect it from Capitalism. As such, more Capitalism has come to save it from Capitalism in the way of Ticketmaster. Whenever I say or type that name, I can hear a chorus of boos. I thought a recent gig seeing Geese was my last at the venue, but I had not realised it would be the host of this. Never say never, I suppose – for I, myself have not yet figured a way to escape Capitalism’s clutches – but it does mean it gets shaded off my London venues map, for now.
After everyone’s heads have returned to normal positions, the lights go down, and recently Orange – I mean Death Cab for Cutie – take to the stage. This tour is supporting this year’s I Build You a Tower, their eleventh studio album, sporting what I believe to be the best cover artwork of their over-30-year career to date. As Ben Gibbard points out to a member of the crowd who has written something on his phone to communicate, he turned 50 last month.
Ben Gibbard, Death Cab for Cutie. Photo: Diana Revell
It’s one of those shocking facts that shouldn’t be shocking and immediately reminds you how old you are. It is, therefore, rather impressive casting an eye around those nearby. There are those in their late 30s and in their 40s and 50s, sure, but it’s impressive to note just how many in their late teens and 20s are also present, bouncing to the sextet’s irresistible melodic rock with a penchant for poppy hooks.
Death Cab have a large catalogue to pull from, and pull from it they do, with eight of their eleven LPs represented during the evening. It is a set that spans 20 songs before a four-song encore. The vast majority are deliriously happy with this. I, on the other hand, do prefer a more curated and commuted set, even when it comes to tenured legends of the music scene. It goes without saying though, that every song hits and is a favourite of someone in the crowd.
Death Cab for Cutie. Photo: Diana Revell
For a band so deep into their career, they enjoy the rare fortune of having fans still engaged in their ongoing output, and so the tracks played from the most recent album are met with almost as much delight as the “classics, not hits” as Gibbard puts it, which must continue to energise the six-piece to still create and tour the world from their base in Seattle, Washington.
They close with ‘Transatlanticism’ from the record of the same name and even those not dancing before are swaying or perhaps even jumping for the first time since they last saw DCfC. As we pour out of the venue into the reality that is the non-space otherwise known as Limehouse, we come to our senses, and go our separate ways, all sharing the knowledge we’ve witnessed a band who remain at the height of their powers. Some will be returning the following night to do it all again. Others will hold this evening long in the memory. I know I will. Perhaps next time I see them they and I will be those few years older, and that set list necessarily needs to fall back into the teens.
I get home and pop an olive into my mouth. Tasty.
Death Cab for Cutie. Photo: Diana Revell
