The Postal Service Gives (Up) Final Performance At HFStival 2024 Before Hiatus
Image Courtesy of Dean Robbins
By Dean Robbins
The Postal Service, a supergroup composed of Death Cab for Cutie singer Ben Gibbard, DJ Jimmy Tamborello, and former child actress turned singer Jenny Lewis, may not be playing again for a very long time. Five days before their performance at the HFStival at Nationals Park, news broke that the band would go on indefinite hiatus immediately.
The Postal Service and Gibbard’s other band Death Cab for Cutie have been on a co-headlining tour for the past year. The Postal Service is playing their only album Give Up, released in 2003. The album’s second track “Such Great Heights” has over 170 million streams on Spotify and was a major hit upon its release. Since then, they have reunited for the tenth and now twentieth anniversary. The former tour became the 2020 live album Everything Will Change. The latter tour began at The Anthem last September.
Gibbard said, “Washington, DC, thank you for being the Alpha and the Omega of the Death Cab for Cutie/Postal Service tour.”
Despite spending much of his life in Washington State, Gibbard attended four years of grade school in Herndon, Virginia. It is then significant to both Gibbard and the city that the band, at least for now, ends here.
Death Cab For Cutie, who preceded with a performance of their 2003 hit Transatlanticism, has been Gibbard’s focus. They have released ten albums since 1998 with the 2022 LP Asphalt Meadows being their most recent effort. It has seen major transformation in this time, especially after founding member Chris Walla departed in 2014.
Tamborello has literally made a name for himself as the electronic artist Dntel with nine albums under his belt. Tamborello is responsible for the particularly bleep-bloop quality of Give Up’s sampled electronic backing. It is this aspect and Gibbard’s earworm vocal melodies that have made the album an enduring classic.
Jenny Lewis was a child actress in films like the Nintendo-themed The Wizard (1989) before co-founding the band Rilo Kiley. Since then, she has launched a successful solo career including last year’s album Joy’All.
While an exact reason for the band’s hiatus was not given, it is very possible that the members want to return to focusing on their various other projects. The legacy of Give Up will remain and perhaps a 30th anniversary tour could happen in 2033.
The concert ended with the members of both bands uniting (see cover photo) to perform a cover of Depeche Mode’s “Enjoy the Silence”. It was their way of saying “all will be okay” as Gibbard, Tamborello, and Lewis move on to other projects.
