The Postal Service made millennials cry at Bay Area concert

The crowd showed up ready to get emotional on the opening night of Death Cab for Cutie and the Postal Service’s three-evening stop at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley on Monday. 

“I texted my girlfriend as I was walking in that I think I’m going to cry at this one,” said attendee Greg Schorr. For him, Death Cab’s “Transatlanticism” has long been “the ultimate breakup album” — and even though he’s now in a happy relationship, he expected the music to transport him back to memories of listening to it “over and over and over and over.” He said, “I’m just hoping I don’t ugly-cry too hard.”

Schorr’s expectation of tears was aligned with the expectation of almost everyone in the primarily millennial-aged audience there to celebrate the 20th anniversary of “Transatlanticism” and the Postal Service’s “Give Up.” While Ben Gibbard’s distinctive voice and poetic lyrics anchor each project, the two albums have separate collaborators and markedly different sounds: The former features sweeping guitar with piano punctuations, while the latter layers beats and boppy synth and includes harmonies from singer Jenny Lewis. 

When Gibbard announced this dual-band tour — which features the two albums played in their entirety — the news ignited enough nostalgia to sell out shows all over the country, including three nights in Berkeley. The opener was New Zealand indie rockers the Beths, whose song “Jump Rope Gazers” Gibbard called the “best love song in the last 10 years,” going on to declare that every other love song should be thrown in a dumpster and lit on fire.

The crowd at the Greek danced around to the Beths, but the energy soared when Gibbard took the stage: Fans packed the floor, the stadium seating and the lawn. At various points throughout the show, the space shook with cheers or scream-sung lyrics. During several slow songs, the comparative quietness felt remarkable as the crowd whipped out cellphones (or actual lighters) to illuminate the stands. Gibbard has always had an affinity for San Francisco, going so far as to use a photo on Bernal Hill as the cover of Death Cab for Cutie’s 2022 album, “Asphalt Meadows.” When he told the audience that the Bay Area is a place “we have always looked forward to playing, and I’m not f—king around, I’m dead f—king serious,” we all went nuts.

“It feels like a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” said Oliver Labone, who had booked the tickets back in February and then flew in all the way from New Zealand. Another couple I talked to — Zach and Joy Rener — had flown in from Austin, Texas. The albums came out the same year they had their first child and served as background music to those early years of parenthood. “I’m for sure going to cry tonight,” Joy said. 

For me, too, “Give Up” and “Transatlanticism” carry deep-seated wistfulness: They were in steady rotation while I was driving to high school in Massachusetts, walking with my iPod headphones or staying out too late with friends on empty neighborhood playgrounds. I’m surprised how many of the lyrics are still lodged in my brain. When I belt out the words to “The Sound of Settling,” (a track that’s perennially stuck in my head even today), it’s funny to remember how, as a high schooler, I felt connected to lyrics like “our youth is fleeting, old age is just around the bend.” It’s still only just around the bend, right? 

It felt particularly poignant to see the show with my younger sister, who shared in many of the same car rides to school where “Such Great Heights” and “Recycled Air” hummed through the speakers of our mistreated Volkswagen. “I think I just left my body for the last few minutes,” she said after one song. “I was reverting back to childhood or something.” 

Gibbard’s enthusiastic, soulful renditions of such beloved songs all these years later made the show feel emotional, nostalgic and cathartic. 

“It was pivotal coming-of-age music,” said Anthony Fennell, who had come up from LA to attend the show with two friends, including Annette Borg, whom he met his first year of high school, the same year the albums came out. The music captured their “aching, bleeding 15-year-old hearts.”  Throughout the show, the trio swayed, hugged, bopped around and cried — particularly during the Postal Service’s “We Will Become Silhouettes” — where Borg describes “sobbing” as the rush of memories washed over her.

The concert allowed us to relive tender moments of the past but through a new lens.

When JB Bolber started listening to “Give Up” and “Transatlanticism,” she was 12 years old. “It was a point in my life where I was sad, where I hated everything, where nothing was ever good enough or ever would be good enough,” she remembered. Listening to Gibbard live and reflecting on her own self-growth felt “incredible,” like healing her inner child, Bolber told me: “I can’t wait to email my therapist.” 

Near the end of the show, Gibbard prompted us to sing along all together to the bridge of “Brand New Colony”: “Everything will change, ooh ooh, everything will change, ooh ooh, everything will change.” 

For all of us in the audience, in our own ways — it did.