Rilo Kiley

Rilo Kiley - Such Great Heights (live 10/09/04 - Philadelphia)

Maybe it's my excitement of seeing RK and Death Cab For Cutie play on Tuesday, but this is just fun (and adds to the hope that DCFC could play this Postal Service cover with its original writer Ben Gibbard and Jenny Lewis singing together).

Blake strips this down to just its melody and simple guitar strumming, and what sounds like a keyboard set to "trumpet" while Jenny sings little bits of back-up. It takes the crowd the first few words to realize Blake isn't starting up the song "ripchord" which he has been opening up the encores with lately on RK's tour. The real singers are the crowd.

This song has also been recorded and released as a cover by Iron & Wine, on the "Such Great Heights" single and placed on the Garden State movie soundtrack. This Iron & Wine version takes the song in a more delicate direction and sounds great until after the first chorus, which is when you realize the song is going absolutely nowhere and is thereafter painfully redundant and monotonous.

The song is excellent as its original indie-dance incarnation, but Rilo Kiley take it and put their own spin on it, making it sound like their own song, which is both a mark of an excellent band, and of an excellent song to be able to survive in another interpretation.