I’m in Austin and within less than a day there will be massive amounts of shows. Shows everywhere. Shows and performances. One giant heaping gathering of shows and performances! (I’m excited, can ya tell.)
But if Austin is the big party then my past two nights in Atlanta were pregaming (although I’d intended for it to be three nights. Sorry, Rich, I heard I missed a great show.) So I figured that since it’ll be highly highly unlikely that I’ll catch Vampire Weekend here at SXSW and even more unlikely that I’d catch them in a venue as small as the EARL ever again, that I’d catch that show and it would maybe feel like I’d seen them at SXSW. Or something.
I hadn’t realized this but Vampire Weekend had actually been to Atlanta before. Keyboardist and primary songwriter Rostam Batmanglij set that record straight saying that they came to town in July where they got all kinds of hot and sweaty for roughly ten people. Batmanglij sounded happy to be there for better weather (and a better crowd) and quite honestly, considering that they’d just been on SNL the previous night, they probably could’ve filled up a 40 Watt-sized venue. (The EARL holds 150 people. Maybe.)
Vampire Weekend has a lot of high energy songs which led to a lot of dancing but if I were to list bands off the top of my head that utterly destroy expectations with their live show, I would not put these guys on it. They’re nothing fiery, nothing extraordinary. However, they were also plagued with technical problems and I would say that they are worth seeing at least once because they do have a fun time.
Despite having sold out venues twice that size, they seemed to particularly enjoy the EARL crowd who hopped and sang along, and according to singer Ezra Koenig, sang rather well. He’d asked us to do a call and response for “One (Blake’s Got a New Face)” and said that he was impressed by our singing, that we apparently had harmonies going on and everything.
“Most of our fans are like soccer hooligans.” he quipped.
They did not play each and every single song from their debut although they played enough for me to realize that the rhythm section of this band is highly underrrated. The tightness and utter ESP between drummer Chris Tomson and bassist Chris Baio is the kind you’d expect from twins separated at birth. I was even more impressed by that than by Baio’s old school Adidas shoes. And I was impressed enough to photograph those shoes.
“A-Punk,” “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa,” and their SNL contribution, “M79″ probably got the best audience response as everyone was more than willing to sing their “Whooooaas” and shout “A! A! A! A!” but they finished the set before 10pm with “Oxford Comma” and took a decent chunk of the audience out the door with them.
By the way, Vampire Weekend didn’t headline this show. But you’ve already heard my thoughts on The Walkmen’s live show, I don’t have much to say except that the major difference between this particular show and previous ones I’ve seen is that The Walkmen actually looked honestly excited to be there…possibly since it was the first date of the tour. That made a huge difference. Still, considering that they played two brand-spanking new (and very good) songs and have three additional albums worth of material, I find it strange that their set continued to clock in at just over an hour. Still annoying.
By the way, last night’s concert was Sia and Har Mar Superstar but since my camera battery died, no review in the works for that one (but I was pleasantly surprised!). Besides, I have a city to explore!
A-Punk – Vampire Weekend
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I have been meaning to check out Vampire Weekend, as I used to know Ezra Koenig in high school and knew how funny, intelligent, and musically talented he was, not to mention how great his taste in music was. So thank you for posting the song! Do you know if they’ll be playing in the Baltimore or NY area any time in the near future?
@ Emily
Looks like all west coast shows through April, and after that it appears they’re touring in the UK.
http://www.vampireweekend.com/shows.php