The Decemberists showed up on Jimmy Kimmel’s vast outdoor stage in LA last night (April 5) to perform a couple of tracks from the recently released The King is Dead. “This is Why we Fight” is an upbeat country-rock number that draws on a wide spectrum of influences (The Replacements, the Jayhawks, Gram Parsons) while “Calamity Song” is a more measure number that bears many of the hallmarks of R.E.M.’s Green—and Colin Meloy has confessed that the band was a huge influence on the making of The King is Dead.
