Vampire Weekend | photo by Ben Wong for WXPN
Though we’ve seen Vampire Weekend evolve time after time in their near 20-year career, no one was expecting what we saw at The Mann last Saturday night.
Vampire Weekend has come a long way since performing at Johnny Brenda’s in 2007 (and being XPN’s Artist to Watch in January of 2008). Flash forward 17 years, and the band performed a monster set full of classics and whimsey in front of 15,000 people at The Mann Center this past Saturday. Opening for Vampire Weekend was fellow New York indie rock band Cults, who wowed the crowd as they opened with their new hit single, “Crybaby” followed by their groovy and boisterous hit, “Left My Keys.”
Vampire Weekend | photo by Ben Wong for WXPN
Vampire Weekend came out playing “Cousins,” “Campus,” and “Bryn” from their first two albums with nothing but bright white lights and a backdrop of their band name. Once they launched into the fourth song, “Ice Cream Piano,” the set was raised, the rest of the band were revealed, and the scenery of a large sewage drain stood behind them with fake concrete and construction workers in the background. Frontman Ezra Koenig is a great performer, adding stories and conversations with the crowd throughout the music.
Songs like “Step” and “Capricorn” were electric with live crowd vocals, especially after Koenig did a poll of how many Capricorns were in attendance before busting out the latter song. Tunes like “Sunflower” contained a snippet of the “Underground Theme” from Super Mario Bros, and was also the introduction of violinist Ray Suen and saxophonist Colin Killelea, who together added a rich orchestral layer to each song.
Next they performed a convincing ska version of their hit “Ottoman,” calling it “ska-ttoman,” and clearly shifted the mood to the absurd. One of the highlights of the night was a 20-minute continuous western style riff called “Cocaine Cowboys” combining “Married in a Gold Rush,” with “All the Gold in California” by Larry Gatlin & the Gatlin Brothers Band, with “Sin City” by The Flying Burrito Brothers and “Cumberland Blues” by The Grateful Dead.
About halfway through the arrangement, one lucky selected audience member named Andy was invited on stage to play a game of “Goldrush” (a western-themed version of Cornhole) for an opportunity to win “gold.” After getting the beanbag in the hole on the third try he was awarded $300 for his efforts. Koenig then proceeded to give out $100 bills to random people in the front row. For the next song, “Mary Boon,” the lights went completely dark, and Koenig sang with nothing but a hand-held fluorescent light, singing in pure darkness. Finishing with the song “Hope,” each member played themselves off as they each walked off stage leaving lastly bassist Chris Baio to close out the set’s final moments.
As the band returned to the stage for a customary encore, they took requests from the crowd of songs they didn’t write. The audience threw out suggestions, and the band gave their best effort covering various songs on the spot, showing their true talent. The ones they knew sounded amazing. while the ones they didn’t, but tried, added a sense of comedy to the show. They covered everything from “Allentown” by Billy Joel to“Everywhere” by Fleetwood Mac to “Karma Police” by Radiohead to “Say It Ain’t So” by Weezer. They even attempted a rendition of “Monster Mash” followed by The Office theme song. After the requests part of the show had run its course, they concluded with the smash hit “Walcott” to close it out with after two and a half hours of nonstop playing.
Check out scenes from the show in the gallery below, beginning with Cults’ set. The band’s tour continues tonight at Ting Pavilion in Charlottesville, Virgina; full dates here.
