Vampire Weekend – Popscene, San Francisco, CA, 31/01/08

The supposed backlash pundits predicted is still waiting in the wings it seems. Vampire Weekend’s unique blend of self-titled “Upper West Side Soweto” came blazing through San Francisco last Thursday at the indie rock dance club Popscene. Whether they were hipsters feeding off the buzz of excitement still swarming around the heads of the Columbia University quartet was not an issue. An hour before the show even started they dotted the outside of the club hungry to hear how Koenig and his sweatered compatriots would translate the bouncy fusion of new wave and African pop, et al on their self-titled debut.

The set proved to be a very close approximation of the no frills pop/classical approach heard on their new record. Bookeded by two DJ sets that flipped through ‘60s and ‘80s hits with plenty of recent indie classics from LCD Soundsystem and Arcade Fire. Listening to a fairly new band can sometimes be a test of patience. Vampire Weekend seemed cordial and exceedingly congratulatory up on stage. With their preppy boat-shoe attire you could have moved the concert out of the dark club and onto a yacht and they would fit right in.

Songs like the breezy opener ‘Mansard Roof’ and Koenig’s clipped diction for calypso swinger ‘Bryn’ whipped the audience into a tizzy. Every song off the new album was played except for the dark bass brooding ‘The Kids Don’t Stand A Chance.’ Instead the audience bounced the Vampire’s punky violin samples for a B-Side heard on Mansard Roof 7” (‘Ladies of Cambridge’) Koenig prefaced the song by noting that he felt it was okay to play the controversial song about Boston for a Californian artist. Why it was controversial seemed rather oblique.

Other songs such as ‘Oxord Comma’ and ‘Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa’ were performed in a straight no-nonsense manner. Koenig’s vocals were the only thing that changed dramatically from their recording which was somewhat a disappointment. That was truly eclipsed by the band’s ability to make everyone move and sing during ‘A-Punk’ and ‘One (Blake’s Got A New Face),’ which was dedicated to the band’s friend from the Bay Area. Blake was in attendance and poked his hand up from the tight mass of people when the band asked him to do so.

Apparently that was the first time the band had played ‘One’ before and it was proved to be quite a grand debut as the crowd sang back the chorus refrain, ‘Blake’s got a new face.’

The night ended with the feverish piano rag ‘Walcott’ as it teetered over the edge of punk with needling guitar (pretty crazy for such a well kempt band). That slight wink at possible things to come from the band which might prove to be the Arctic Monkeys of 2008 with their surging popularity. Let’s hope their sophomore album doesn’t follow the same trajectory as the fairly lukewarm Monkeys.

Links
Vampire Weekend [myspace] [album review] [20 questions]