Last night, lifelong Seattle Mariners fan Benjamin Gibbard got to perform “The Star-Spangled Banner” at T-Mobile Park before the Mariners’ home opener against the Boston Red Sox. The Death Cab for Cutie frontman stood just in front of home plate to sing the national anthem. Watch Gibbard’s performance, which preceded a tough loss for the home team, below.
Gibbard has performed at Mariners games a handful of times: Death Cab for Cutie played covers of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” and “Centerfield” on Opening Day in 2010, and Gibbard returned to perform “Centerfield” again, this time solo, in 2020 for a particularly somber, pandemic-era Opening Day. He’s also thrown out the first pitch at multiple games.
Gibbard’s love of baseball is not one-sided. When the Mariners traded the legendary Ichiro Suzuki to the New York Yankees in 2012, he wrote a song to honor the 10-time MLB All-Star: “Ichiro’s Theme.” The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum then displayed Gibbard’s handwritten song lyrics in its archives.
If all this talk of sweet songs and live performances has you wondering when you can see Gibbard next, then you’re in double luck: The Postal Service and Death Cab for Cutie are extending their co-headlining tour into this year, and it picks back up again in April.
Read “The Death Cab/Postal Service Tour Is Peak Millennial Nostalgia, in the Best Way” on the Pitch.