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Ben Gibbard and His Wife Rachel Demy During Saturday's Concert

Mar 30, 2020 By Christopher Roberts Ben Gibbard

In response to the COVID-19 Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie has been live streaming daily solo concerts from his home studio. Yesterday was his last daily concert, he is moving to weekly concerts starting this Thursday, and for the occasion he did another all-covers set (as he did last Sunday). He covered R.E.M.’s “Half a World Away,” The Cure’s “Just Like Heaven,” Morrissey’s “Everyday Is Like Sunday,” Hall & Oates’ “Out of Touch,” The Magnetic Fields’ “Strange Powers,” Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon,” Kris Kristofferson and Rita Coolidge’s “Please Don’t Tell Me How the Story Ends,” Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Only Living Boy In New York,” and Spiritualized’s “Hold On.” Before the Morrissey song he prefaced that you have to separate an artist’s politics or past actions from their art. Watch the set below.

Also below are Friday’s and Saturday’s Live From Home concerts. Friday’s was a best of Gibbard set voted on by the fans, where he performed a Top 10 that included mainly Death Cab For Cutie songs (a lot from Transatlanticism) and a couple of Postal Service tunes. Saturday’s concert was a dealer’s choice show, where Gibbard played what he liked. His wife, photographer Rachel Demy, also joined in for Saturday’s concert.

The week before last Gibbard also shared a video where he performed the new song “Life In Quarantine,” which is inspired by what we’re all going through with COVID-19, and last week he shared the studio version of the song (which is still solo acoustic), which was one of our Songs of the Week.

Gibbard previously announced that he’s taking requests. Previously during his live stream concerts Gibbard covered Radiohead’s “Fake Plastic Trees,” New Order’s “Ceremony,” and other songs. He previously did an all-covers set with covers of songs by Phoebe Bridgers, Elliott Smith, Rilo Kiley, The Shins, The Flaming Lips, John Lennon, Bob Dylan, Big Star, and Def Leppard.

Death Cab for Cutie released a new EP, The Blue EP, last year via Atlantic. Death Cab for Cutie’s last album, Thank You For Today, came out in 2018 via Atlantic.

Read our 2018 interview with Death Cab for Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard on Thank You For Today.

Also read our 2018 The End interview with Gibbard about endings and death.

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