Ben Gibbard has been using his time in quarantine to perform a daily livestreamed set, playing both solo material and songs from Death Cab for Cutie. This week, he dedicated an entire hour-long performance to Death Cab for Cutie tracks from 1997 to 2001 and brought in some rarities from the early era of the band.
The set included songs off the band’s 2000 album We Have the Facts and We’re Voting Yes, which celebrated its 20th anniversary earlier this week. Gibbard performed acoustic renditions of album cuts like “No Joy in Mudville” and “Company Calls Epilogue,” and also brought in the band’s 1997 track “Champagne From a Paper Cup.”
During the concert, Gibbard covered Dntel’s “(This Is) the Dream of Evan and Chan,” the Secret Stars’ “Wait” and closed with Death Cab for Cutie’s “The Face That Launched 1,000 Shits,” a cover of the Revolutionary Hydra original from 1998’s Something About Airplanes. He even included a tune from his project All Time Quarterback called “Cleveland.”
Gibbard has been livestreaming concerts daily, including an all-covers edition over the weekend. Ben Gibbard: Live From Home airs live at 4 p.m. PST via YouTube and Facebook, and the singer has been taking fan requests on social media ahead of each show.
He also debuted a new song, “Life in Quarantine,” during one episode, noting, “I know this is a really fucked-up and scary time for everybody, including myself. And I know that we’re all trying to figure out what we can do to make it better and what we can do to alleviate the suffering of someone else.”
