Two of Seattle’s biggest artists — local indie-rock heroes Death Cab for Cutie and longtime resident Dave Matthews — took a back seat on Friday to a name even bigger than theirs: the Dalai Lama. Death Cab was the unlisted add-on to the April 11 KeyArena event, on which Matthews and longtime guitar crony Tim Reynolds were billed second to the Tibetan Buddhist leader. Even more unusually, Matthews was one of the Dalai Lama’s interviewers during a show that began in late afternoon: doors opened around 4 p.m., and the final song of Matthews’ and Reynolds’ set, “Lie in Our Graves,” shuddered to a close at 9:15. It was His Holiness’s second public appearance of the day, following a morning panel at the Bank of America Arena at the University of Washington campus; both were part of a five-day tour of the city’s larger venues sponsored by Seeds of Compassion, a local nonprofit.

The evening kicked off with an hour-long dialogue with the Dalai Lama. Matthews, clearly nervous, asked the Dalai Lama how he felt music applied to compassion: “The message of love through music may be stronger in depth,” the Dalai Lama said in part. Later, Matthews noted that as part of a gang of his schoolmates, he’d fought kids from a different school, only for those rivals to have since become his best friends.

After an hour’s intermission, Death Cab played six acoustic songs, including the new “Talking Bird” (though bassist Nick Harmer’s instrument was still plugged in). (more…)