Los Angeles is a diamond in a giant sea of vomit, feces and biological waste from one of the 5,694 rhinoplasty facilities this town has to offer. Oftentimes, the refuse can drag you down, making you forget that just past the fat removed from the backside of a 43-year-old Beverly Hills housewife is something truly beautiful and one of a kind. Last night, Death Cab for Cutie dove headfirst through the muck and mire to get to that diamond, and were considerate enough to share that swim with 7,100 of their closest friends who made it into the sold-out Nokia Theatre.

As I made the trek from the garbage-stained streets of Hollywood to the garbage-stained streets of downtown Los Angeles, I found myself concerned: where was the traffic? Why is it that I can take the 101 to the 110 on a Saturday afternoon and my trip takes an hour, but at rush hour it only took us 10 minutes? Did Jesus come back and I didn’t get the memo?

Maybe our lord and savior just wanted me to check out the entire set by Oakland, California’s Rogue Wave, whose mellow, melodic indie rock quickly won the crowd over. As the band played songs like “Chicago X 12” I kept sitting there in my comfy chair inside the Nokia Theatre saying, “Really, God, Oakland? These guys sound nothing like Oakland. They must have grown up in the hills or something.” Either way, these sons of Oak-Town did what they were supposed to do: spend 33 quality minutes getting the crowd ready for the main event, Death Cab for Cutie.

Taking the stage just after 9 p.m., Death Cab had the capacity crowd going crazy. Girls who would never give the guys in Death Cab the time of day if they were regular Joe Schmos out on the street screamed as if they were watching the Beatles at Shea Stadium. As the opening notes of “Bixby Canyon Bridge,” from their amazing new record, Narrow Stairs, rang through the speakers, the crowd only got louder. Death Cab mania is in full effect these days, and it is well deserved.

It only took the band three songs to start talking trash about Los Angeles. “Why You’d Want to Live Here” is the song that had me signing up for the Death Cab army years ago. A brutal tongue-lashing that highlights some of the uglier sides of this multi-dimensional concrete wasteland, the song is a personal favorite as it has helped me through some tough times in this city I can despise so much.

Over the just-shy-of-two-hour set, the band managed to mix up classic Cab jams such as “A Movie Script Ending” and “Company Calls” with more recent classics such as “Marching Bands of Manhattan” and “The New Year.” It would not be a Los Angeles Death Cab show without an ode to our most rotten freeway, the ”405.”

As much as I enjoyed the pre-Seth Cohen classics, the new songs are what really grabbed my attention. The band has described its new record as raw, and with the venues only getting bigger for this band, new songs like “Long Division” and “Cath” are much more efficient at rocking larger crowds then, let’s say, “Styrofoam Plates.”

I think the highlight for most was the triple threat of corporate-rock radio hits the band played back-to-back-to-back. Ben Gibbard had to restart “Soul Meets Body” as he got off on the wrong foot and was not playing along with the other three band members: drummer Jason McGerr, bassist Nick Harmer and multi-instrumentalist/producer Chris Walla.

“I Will Follow You Into the Dark” got the crowd to stop sending text messages to their friends and start singing along like we were at a campfire. The biggest ovation, though, came from the eight-plus-minute current rock radio monster hit “I Will Possess Your Heart.” With Harmer laying down phat bass bombs that made you feel as if the T. Rex from “Jurassic Park” is right behind you, it became obvious that this song was written to tear your face off in a live setting. In fact, one of the most important things about Death Cab for Cutie is how all four members that make up the band are nothing alike, but when put together create this unique kind of monster not meant for mass duplication.

In many ways, Death Cab for Cutie’s relationship with Los Angeles is similar to mine. On the outside we put her down and discuss all of her flaws. We trash talk the dirty summer skies and the freeways that are clogged tighter than the arteries of a man about to have a fatal heart attack. We are capable of producing some ugly thoughts, but we do this because our own hearts are vulnerable, filled with a strange Stockholm Syndrome love. We are so bitter and sarcastic only to protect that strange love.

It only took one listen of their latest record for me to discover I had a new favorite Death Cab song. Gibbard shared with the crowd last night that he is well aware he has some songs that don’t portray our home in the most positive of light. However, “Grapevine Fires,” he explained, is a love letter to this crazy city whose hills and mountains burn to the ground on a yearly basis. As the band played this delicate number, for a brief moment Death Cab helped all of us see that giant diamond gently floating in a sea of sewage.

In fact, the band bio may read that Death Cab for Cutie hail from the very green state of Washington. But with both their music and lyrics acting as a dichotomy between ugliness and beauty, Death Cab for Cutie are a Los Angeles band tried and true. Thank you for reminding me why I choose to live here.

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