Victoria Warehouse – Live Review

Death Cab for Cutie | Pool Kids
Victoria Warehouse, Manchester
19th September 2026

Seattle’s stalwarts of indie rock make up for lost time at their first Manchester show in seven years

Ben Gibbard opens tonight’s show with an apology. “It won’t be seven years before we come back here again.” Death Cab for Cutie last played Manchester in 2019, across town at the Albert Hall. Back then, they were still finding their feet as a new band, which sounds a strange thing to say about 20+-year veterans of the Pacific Northwest indie rock scene. The departure of guitarist and producer Chris Walla in 2014 left a huge void, and on 2018’s Thank You for Today – the group’s first album made entirely without him – you could hear them, creatively speaking, treading water.

Since then, things have changed dramatically. Famed producer John Congleton has found a way to extract the best out of Death Cab, leading to two outstanding late-career records: 2023’s Asphalt Meadows and, this past June, I Built You a Tower. Plus, this new live lineup has come together impressively to deliver the punchiest and most polished version of Death Cab ever to hit the stage, guitarist Dave Depper and keyboardist Zac Rae lending a subtlety and nuance to their sound that wasn’t always there. They should have played across town at the Apollo in 2023 were it not for Gibbard losing his voice, and surprisingly left Manchester off the itinerary when touring their best-loved record, Transatlanticism, for its twentieth anniversary two years ago.

All of which is to say that they have some lost time to make up for, after an enthralling opening set by Florida emo revivalists Pool Kids. They set about doing so in pointed fashion, rattling off new tracks, the nervy, taut Riptides opening the show. The new record can be seen as a loose concept record chronicling the collapse of Gibbard’s second marriage and, presented live, you realise how far these fresh songs have him stepping out of his comfort zone. How Heavenly A State is a noisy, feedback-laden monster, possibly the heaviest track the band have ever recorded, whilst Punching The Flowers carries a spiky aggression that is by no means the band’s stock in trade.

And yet, there are still moments that feel like deliberate nods to the band’s past; the lovely, looping guitar line on I Built You A Tower recalls their 2001 track Debate Exposes Doubt, a deep cut that Gibbard recently claimed, probably not coincidentally, is among their most underrated. Songs of that ilk from the back catalogue are well represented in what is a near-two-hour set; there are energetic, muscular takes on the classic likes of Company Calls and The New Year, affecting versions of the reflective likes of Black Sun and What Sarah Said, and a moving singalong to I Will Follow You Into The Dark, which Gibbard dedicates to The Stone Roses whilst describing Manchester as “the greatest music city in the world.”

And, ultimately, it’s the newer and more adventurous material that wins the day; there’s a couple of Asphalt Meadows songs late in the set, a nice acknowledgement of the fact that the band never made it here on that tour, including Foxglove Through the Clearcut, an atmospheric maelstrom of a song that sees Gibbard go spoken-word. It’s a testament to the fact that – despite almost three decades together as one of U.S. alternative’s most storied bands – Death Cab are still finding ways to evolve.

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Death Cab for Cutie can be found at their Facebook | Instagram | website

Words by Joe Goggins: find him on X here

Photos supplied, by Friswell Photograph / 3 Songs & Out