Under an overcast Saturday-night sky, a packed amphitheater of raucous fans stood enthralled by Death Cab for Cutie as the Seattle-based quartet played the second and final night of a sold-out Greek Theater run. It was a night marked by pumped-up energy, multiple sing-alongs, and frontman Ben Gibbard's signature sophisticated, bittersweet lyrics.

Death Cab for Cutie

After nearly a decade of amassing indie cachet, Death Cab (Gibbard, guitarist Chris Walla, bassist Nick Harmer, and drummer Jason McGerr) has seen its fan base widen massively in recent years, solidified by a 2005 Best Alternative Album Grammy nom for its latest album, 2005's Plans. Thanks to this, as well as the mainstreaming of the "emo" subgenre (for better or for worse), the popularity of Gibbard's 2003 side project The Postal Service, a move to major label Atlantic in 2004, and some fortuitous PR ops like a 2005 appearance on The OC, Death Cab is finally getting its due, playing to the biggest crowds in its history.

In front of a surrealist backdrop of misshapen, cartoonish white houses and ghostly white trees that evoked a sense of childlike trepidation a la Hansel and Gretel, the band played an intense 18-song set that was anything but cautious. Opening with the lovely, atmospheric "Your Heart Is an Empty Room," Death Cab kicked the set into gear with rousing crowd-pleaser "The New Year."

After Gibbard greeted the crowd and promised a great night, the band dove into a smooth, well-paced collection of tunes that ran the gamut from danceable ("Title and Registration") to melancholy ("Summer Skin") to straightforward rock (a cover of "I'm Going Home" by gritty '60s rock band the Sonics, who are, according to Gibbard and Walla, "the greatest band from the Northwest").

As one might expect, songs from Death Cab's two most recent albums, Plans and 2003's Transatlanticism, comprised the bulk of the set list, but a few select pieces from their back catalog were thrown in for good measure, including "Company Calls" from 2000's We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes, which Gibbard dedicated to Nathan Good, the band's original drummer.

There were dedications and anecdotes aplenty at the Greek, most notably the frontman's endearingly pretentious quip in the lead-in to "Expo '86" about the time when an old Best Buy commercial crystallized for him that one can indeed enjoy "cool lyrics" without "overintellectualizing" the music. Ah, timeless wisdom...

The audience seemed to embody that sentiment during the show's climax, forgoing cerebral pontificating in favor of spirited sing-alongs to hit "Soul Meets Body" (during which opening acts Spoon and Bay Area-based duo Mates of State joined the band onstage), the poppy "The Sound of Settling," and Gibbard's plaintive calls of "I need you so much closer" during "Transatlanticism," to which contented couples snuggled close and sad singletons fought back tears. The hipster hootenanny continued through to the show's encore, as Gibbard emerged solo for the sweet acoustics of "I Will Follow You Into the Dark." Moments later, mirroring the wistful singer, 8,000 satisfied fans wafted out of the venue and into the chilly night.