When Vampire Weekend came out, the crowd in the reserved seats stood up at once, like it was time to say the Pledge of Allegiance in grade school. The band opened without comment, letting the bouncy "Holiday" speak for itself. Some generous soul in the back of the audience started chucking glow sticks into the crowd -- they must have brought over 100 -- and before long there was a mini-rave on the pit floor.
The 20-song set was tight as a drum; Vampire Weekend raced through their catalogue, keeping the energy high and delivering each song with the kind of precision that most acts this green simply aren't capable of. If there's one thing these boys learned in private school, it's that practice makes perfect.
It would be an exercise in futility to try to determine a crowd favorite or even dissect the set properly. Even "Diplomat's Son" was redeemed by the 8-bit digression in the middle. Keyboardist Rotsam Batmanglij (I hope his friends call him Batman for short) provided the plinking backdrop, eliciting a number of sounds from his keys, the baroque spinet on "M79, " lullaby scales on "Taxi Cab" and trampoline-synth on "Run." Bassist Chris Baio high-stepped around the stage when the mood struck him, trading his bass for a stand-up bass (also known as a CONTRAbass, get it?!) for "Taxi Cab," while drummer Chris Tomson pounded jungle beats on his kit. Koenig's cherubic pipes and informed instrumentation were beyond reproach.
The biggest relief in the set came from a Springsteen cover, "I'm Going Down." While the cover was all but completely lost on the vast majority of college-age people in the pit, it was as refreshing as a cool Cape Cod breeze. Take it from Bruce: Repeating the same simple chorus is okay. Koenig writes lyrics like he's running a polysyllabic marathon -- the man isn't happy unless he's spewing $5 words. A taste of the lyrics for the uninitiated: "madras," "trophy," "sweater," "callous," "Alps," "private schools," "fake cheesesteak," "Spanish brownstone."
And, again, that stupid "Horchata." It's a delightful beverage, but c'mon. We get it. You went to college. You know what horchata is, which means you're totally unique, just like the 615 million people in Latin America and Spain who grew up drinking it. But they're not pretentious enough to try rhyming it with "balaclava." Koenig could only be more college if he were singing about late night Jimmy Johns and Northface.
Lyrical masturbation aside, you can't fault the guy for much else. Every song was predictably good, and Vampire Weekend stayed true to the albums without becoming rote. Koenig's elastic voice bounds and reels, and is really quite beautiful; the rhythm section was sterling; and the show was pretty much fantastic.
SETLIST
Holiday
White Sky
Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa
I Stand Corrected
M79
Bryn
California English
Cousins
Taxi Cab
Run
A-Punk
One (Blake's Got a New Face)
I'm Going Down
Diplomat's Son
I Think UR a Contra
Giving Up the Gun
Campus
Oxford Comma
Encore:
Horchata
Mansard Roof
Walcott
Critic's Notebook: For all my bitching, I left that dang arena with a
new respect for Vampire Weekend. They put on a show. They made people
happy. They caused a teeny cadre of folks to blow their penny pitcher
monies on glow sticks for the pit. They were fun. Have I
heretofore been a victim of requisite hipster derision -- as in, if these
kids were poor, or at least less privileged, I might be defending their
kitschy ingenuity?
Also, very sad Beach House didn't bust their slo-mo cover of Gucci Mane's "Lemonade."
Random Comment: After Beach House's set -- "Oh yeah, there's another band, right?" It's okay. I almost forgot too.
The Crowd: YOUNG. Real young.