We Saw Death Cab for Cutie on the Cusp of International Stardom
How surreal it was in 2003 to realize our hometown band had fans traveling across the ocean to see them.
A movie script ending…
As co-founders of a Seattle music-focused website in the 2000s, Imaginary Liz and I saw Death Cab for Cutie play many times in our imaginary lives. But this show in early 2003 had a special magic about it, one that’s even more fascinating in retrospect.
This was the first night we realized Death Cab was on the cusp of superstardom.
We watched many bands grow from obscure to success, in varying degrees. We were at the first-ever Decemberists show in Seattle, and the first-ever Fleet Foxes show anywhere. Death Cab weren’t a new band when Three Imaginary Girls launched. They’d been playing out in the northwest since 1997 and were already signed to local indie-darling label Barsuk Records. So by the time we got on the scene, the band was already pretty Seattle-famous, and were getting nationwide airplay on alternative radio stations.
But this show was special because it was the first time we realized how our hometown band had gathered international attention.
