Vance Joy plays his song "Riptide" with a capo on the 1st fret of his guitar. This transposes the song from C Major up a semitone to C# Major. The chords are still playable in that key without a capo, but you will not be able to use the open chord shapes that suit this song better. This is only relevant if you want to play it in the same key as Vance Joy, since you could just play the same shapes without a capo, which would be one semitone lower than the original recording.