The Postal Service Announces Indefinite Hiatus Following Final 2024 Live Performance

Steven J. Horowitz
·2 min read
11

The Postal Service has announced plans to go on an indefinite hiatus following its final 2024 tour date later this week.

The Seattle group has been on a reunion tour co-headlined by Death Cab for Cutie since summer 2023, with dates extended through Sept. 2024 due to popular demand. The tour celebrated the 20-year anniversaries of Postal Service’s “Give Up” and Death Cab’s “Transatlanticism,” with both albums being played in full.

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The Postal Service’s final show will take place this Saturday at Washington, D.C.’s HFStival, which will also feature performances from Bush, Garbage, Jimmy Eat World, Girl Talk and more.

“As we bring the Transatlanticism / Give Up Tour to a close, I want you all to know that getting the opportunity to perform these two albums live has been one of the greatest thrills and honors of my entire life,” said Postal Service frontman Ben Gibbard in a statement. “On behalf of Death Cab for Cutie and The Postal Service; Thank you so much for coming out and singing along. We will see you all again somewhere down the road.”

Gibbard, of course, is a member of both bands and formed the Postal Service to release its debut and only album “Give Up” in Feb. 2003. The Postal Service’s core group included Gibbard and Jimmy Tamborello, with Lewis providing vocals and subsequently joining as a full-time member. “Give Up” was assembled by the artists sending instrumentals and music through the mail.

Talk of a sophomore album percolated for years following the release of “Give Up,” and while it never materialized, the band remained active with a reunion tour in 2013. That year, Gibbard said that its Lollaplooza after-show would be its last-ever performance, and it wouldn’t be until 2020 that the group put out a new project with the live album “Everything Will Change.”

Just last month, Gibbard reiterated that a new Postal Service album would likely never materialize. “I think the main reason that a second Postal Service record has never come to fruition – and will never come to fruition – the time commitments that Death Cab ended up taking, which really started with ‘Transatlanticism’, haven’t really ever let up,” he told NME. “There’s just not enough time, let alone creative juices flowing, to make a suitable follow-up [to ‘Give Up’]. I think anything that we would attempt to make at this point would be thoroughly disappointing.”

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