The band stages whimsical reenactments of sea battles and other centuries-old events, typically of regional interest, or acts out songs with members of the crowd.

There he met Nate Query, who introduced Meloy to Jenny Conlee (they had played together in the band Calobo) and the three scored a silent film together.

The members at that time played for several hours in a McMenamins hotel the night before to raise the money needed to record in the studio the next day.

In 2004, the band released "The Tain", an eighteen-and-a-half minute single track based on the Irish mythological epic Táin Bó Cúailnge.

[3] In the same month, the band's equipment trailer was stolen;[4] fans contributed to a replacement fund, and another fundraiser was organized via an eBay auction, with buyers bidding for copies of Colin Meloy Sings Morrissey and original artwork by Carson Ellis.

In early April, police discovered the trailer and a portion of the band's merchandise in Clackamas, Oregon, but the instruments and equipment were not recovered.

In 2006, The Crane Wife was voted NPR listeners' favorite album of the year, as announced on the December 5 episode of All Songs Considered,[8] and it remains one of the Decemberists' most critically acclaimed records.

[10] The feud culminated in a December 20 guitar solo competition[10] on Colbert's show, with lead guitarist Funk representing the band.

Show guests got involved, with New York Governor-elect Eliot Spitzer and Dr. Henry Kissinger declaring, "Tonight, I think the American people won."

On July 7, the tour put the band on the stage of the historic Hollywood Bowl for the first time, pairing them with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

[15] The members of The Decemberists appeared, individually billed (as "Colin Meloy, Chris Funk, Jenny Conlee, Nate Query, and John Moen"), to perform in support of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama at a rally at the Tom McCall Waterfront Park in Portland, Oregon, on May 18, 2008.

The Hazards of Love was released on March 24, 2009 on Capitol Records, under Red Light Management (Jason Colton and Ron Laffitte).

[18] A press release read: "The album began when Meloy – long fascinated by the British folk revival of the 1960s – found a copy of revered vocalist Anne Briggs's 1966 EP, titled The Hazards of Love.

On February 9, 2009, the Decemberists announced in a newsletter to fans that they would be embarking on the first leg of the "A Short Fazed Hovel" Tour 2009 starting on May 19 in Los Angeles at the Hollywood Palladium.

The newsletter included a complete list of dates for the first leg of the tour ending on June 14 at the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in Manchester, Tennessee.

During the show, the band members performed a skit where they ran up and down the aisles participating in a fictitious battle at Fort Pitt.

The master of ceremonies for the evening was singer/songwriter John Wesley Harding and the opening act was Laura Veirs and the Hall of Flames.

", "Yankee Bayonet (I Will Be Home Then)", "The Tain I-V", "Annan Water", "The Crane Wife 3" and "The Island/Come and See/The Landlord's Daughter/You'll Not Feel the Drowning", and an original song, as a bingo ball suggested, called "Miracle on the Hudson".

[20][21][22] In 2009, The Decemberists also contributed the song "Sleepless" to the AIDS benefit album Dark Was the Night, which was produced by the Red Hot Organization.

On September 4, 2010, the band opened for Neko Case and the headliner, Bob Dylan, the first day of the Bumbershoot Arts and Music Festival in Seattle, WA.

[25] The Decemberists' "Popes of Pendarvia World Tour" in support of The King Is Dead began with a show on January 25, 2011 at Beacon Theatre in New York City.

[30] In support of their bandmate, the band designed a 'Team Jenny' charity t-shirt for the Yellow Bird Project to raise money for Planned Parenthood.

The video depicts a game, played on a tennis court by children, of simulated thermonuclear war as described in the "Eschaton" scene of David Foster Wallace's novel Infinite Jest.

While on hiatus, the group's only activity as The Decemberists was a cameo appearance on the 7th episode in the 24th season of The Simpsons, in which the band was rendered in the show's traditional style of animation and presented as the hip, new music teachers of Springfield Elementary.

[33][34] On April 24, further establishing their return, the band performed on the Season 6 finale of the NBC comedy series Parks and Recreation.

and Conan, and on February 11, embarked on a European tour which included dates in Ireland, the UK, The Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, and Italy.

[42] A collaborative album titled The Queen of Hearts with UK folk artist Olivia Chaney was released under the name Offa Rex on Nonesuch Records on July 14, 2017.

[43] On August 14, the band's concert at Prospect Park Bandshell (part of the BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn Festival) was broadcast live on WFUV.

[61] Meloy confessed a "slavish love" for Morrissey, one of his principal influences, to whom he has a tattoo dedicated,[59] and has made "a sort of pilgrimage" to the site of the cover photograph for The Waterboys' Fisherman's Blues, an album he “wore out from obsessively repeated listens.