The following article was written by Mike Weiner:
Seldom do you see a band that really shows you that they are having just as good of a time at their show as you are. Last Sunday was the first show of three for Vampire Weekend in NYC. My buddy Julien and I barely got tickets that night for the show as their tickets online said they were sold out and were going for $800 on eBay. We found out that at the last moment, the band freed up a whole section in the middle orchestra section for only $30 a piece.
The opening band was pretty awful. The singer was trying to way to hard to change the world by recreating the persona and lyrics of Conor Oberst (Bright Eyes), but did a very poor job of doing so.
Following the set change the house started pumping “Jump Around” by House of Pain. As four skinny white males (Vampire Weekend) walked out to take the stage, the crowd went ape shit! This is quite possibly the best entrance I have ever seen! They immediately jumped into their set list, and played just about every song from both albums. Singer Ezra Koenig was pretty pumped about playing for NY, which was obvious due to his energy level that was at a constant high. He didn’t miss a beat.
Bassist Chris Baio was drenched in sweat from running back and fourth from his stand up bass to his electric bass, which were used alternately for various songs. Rostam Batmanglij (keyboards, guitar, backing vocals) played just about every instrument on the stage.
For their encore, Vampire Weekend came out and played “Cousins”, “Walcott”, and several other songs. It was by far one of the longest encores I’ve ever seen. They truly enjoyed playing for us here in NYC!
It’s hard to come by a band who actually sounds just as good live (if not better) than they do on their CD. My friend has been amped about the band ever since we left the show. In his French accent he said “ah! Mike! Vampire Weekend sounds even better to me than they do before!”.
Hands down this was a fantastic show! I would have rather seen them in a venue like Bowery Ballroom where there’s a stage and a big, open (no chairs), dance floor. This band is NOT a band you can just sit and listen to live. It would have been nice to dance around a little to their music.
All in all I would love to see these guys again. I look forward with great anticipation to their next gig! I give them two really big thumbs up! Thank you guys a ton for coming to NYC, we loved having ya!
