By William Butler
Yes, The Postal Service will be performing in Orlando on June 5th at the Hard Rock.
Is there any better comfort than the first 3 chords of The District Sleeps Alone Tonight? The Postal Service was founded in 2001 with the collaboration of Ben Gibbard and Jimmy Tamborello. They were inspired after working together on a song titled (This Is) The Dream of Evan and Chan. After this, they released an EP of remixes which was extremely well received. Their project was so named after the method by which they exchanged creative material. Jimmy would record audio onto tapes and Ben would edit the tapes. Front-woman Jenny Lewis (of Rilo Kiley) also contributed as she lived in the same complex as Jimmy. Jimmy and Chris Walla produced what became their debut album Give Up.
Let’s face it; Give Up was the soundtrack to your middle school. It was probably also the soundtrack to your high school. Actually, you’re probably listening to it right now. And that’s fine. It speaks to many of our generation and is musically one of the most solid albums of the 2000s. For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, please stop reading right now. Stop reading, download Spotify, search for Give Up and listen to that entire album. You’re welcome.
What makes this band so amazing is their ability to approach both the melancholy and dark humor that fills our inner child with teenage angst. Take We Will Become Silhouettes, for example. Ben cheerfully sings “The air outside will make our cells/Divide at an alarming rate until our shells/Simply cannot hold all our inside in/And that’s when we’ll explode/And it won’t be a pretty sight.” over layers of electronic magnificence.
And now the tragic part of this story. The Postal Service made no follow up to their 2003 album. They’ve expressed disinterest in a sophomore album and this was the status of The Postal Service for a decade. They performed very rarely, only a few times for promotional reasons prior to Give Up. Their music was features in television shows, cover albums, and again on all of our iPods growing up. Fans begged, blogged, and messaged for more material but The Postal Service has remained relatively silent. Earlier this year, however, everything changed.
First, tier 3 blogs reported that The Postal Service was going to reunite and record a second album. Weary of false hope, most of these reports went unnoticed. Then, when The Postal Service updated their official website, people started to pay attention. All that their website read was “The Postal Service 2013.” Some saw this as confirmation to the reports of a second album. Others were more cynical and saw this as promotion for a possible one-time show at the Coachella music festival. Both reports were partially true. No, The Postal Service did not record a second album but they did release new material. To support this re-release of Give Up, they extended their performance at Coachella.
I repeat, The Postal Service will be performing in Orlando on June 5th at the Hard Rock. Although their tickets sold out on the day that they went on sale, they are still available on Stubhub and Facebook. Stubhub is currently selling a good deal of tickets from 105$-501$ and I was able to purchase a ticket last night on Facebook for about 80$ for a friend. When we bought tickets through Ticketmaster, we got them originally for about 65$. For a band this amazing, it was well worth it.
Jacob Engels, is the Founder of East Orlando Post. Along with the Post, he owns several other businesses and is currently enrolled at Valencia College. Jacob has lived in Avalon Park since it’s founding and enjoys playing with his black Labradoodle Jasper, listening to indie rock, and seeking out new business ventures. He can be reached at info@eastorlandopost.com
