I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: May 31, 2025] Vampire Weekend

Vampire Weekend’s first two albums are perfect.  They are two of my favorite albums and any time I listen to them, it makes me smile.  I had wanted to see them for a while, but I wasn’t sure if they would be as good as the records live.  And then suddenly they were selling out bigger venues than I wanted go.  I had tickets to see them in 2019 but couldn’t make it.  Somehow I missed when they played The Mann in 2024 (I was too buys that weekend anyhow) and finally I was able to snag tickets for one of the two nights at The Met.

I saw after that they played a different set for each night, so it’s a bummer I couldn’t go to both.  But having finally gotten so see them I can yell at my younger self because they were fantastic live.

After Geese left the stage, a giant Vampire Weekend banner dropped in front of the dark curtain.  A whole bunch of folks in dayglo yellow set up the stage area–bringing out a piano and drums as well as a mic stand.

Having never seen them I honestly wasn’t sure if this was the show–just a trio in front of the band’s name.  And I was fine with it because they sounded great.

It was just the original trio singer/guitarist Ezra Koenig, drummer Chris Tomson, and bassist Chris Baio.  They opened with  the quiet Hold Me Now and then segued into a far more rollicking Oxford Comma (And I was in heaven because they’d already played on of my favorites songs).  And then they played Blake’s Got a New Face, which my wife and I had just been singing.  It was great.

It was sometime during the next song Ice Cream Piano that I realized that there were more sounds coming from the stage than these three guys could possible make.  And soon after, the pulled back the VW curtain to reveal a huge band behind them.  The revelation was quite a delightful surprise and it wasn’t until they started the next song, Classical (which I never no the name of) that I realized how great the whole huge band sounded.  There were two drummers, keys, several guitars and lots of backing singers.  During the instrumental section of the song, one of the guys in the dayglo shirt did a very sexy dance in the spotlight.  It was pretty fun.

And how to describe the backdrop?  It looked like they were in an underground tunnel, like a concrete bunker with multiple ins and outs.  It looked really convincing.

Ezra typically played guitar but for a few songs, like Connect, he put down the guitar and walked the stage while singing.

I loved hearing Unbelievers and clapping along to the three thumps in the verses.  But I was even more excited when they jumped back to the debut for Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa.  And I was sort of blown away by how responsive the crowd was.  I realize both nights sold out, but everyone sang along to every song.

I loved hearing Ezra play the guitar opening to This Life and then anticipating the rest of the band kicking in a few moments later.

I do like their new stuff too, but it was great to finally hear older songs like Diplomat’s Son and Giving Up the Gun live.

They changed things up a bit and brought a bunch of the band to the front of the stage for a quiet acoustic set. We could finally really see the saxophonist and the violin player as well as the mandolin.  All of this was made even more amusing because Chirs Baio sat out for the almost the whole acoustic set (he played melodica for the final song of the set)

The acoustic set included We Go Together, a Jerry Garcia Band cover (Ruben and Cherise) which I had never heard of but which I really liked) and I Think Ur a Contra.

The full stage opened up again for Capricorn.  Everyone went crazy for the fun of Diane Young and even more crazy for A-Punk.  The pogoing continued for Campus.

Things slowed down for Mary Boone, but there was a lot of fun for Hannah Hunt (and anyone named Hannah Hunt in the audience) and Harmony Hall (complete with vibra slap).  And then everyone left for an encore break.

I had seen that the encore was full of covers. And it was full of A LOT Of covers (our encore was almost 20 songs).  But it turned out that the covers were just snippets of the songs (but that was fine, it meant a lot more songs and a greatest hits of cool songs.

And the covers sounded great.  They played songs by Phoenix, Tame Impala (the bass sounded perfect), Beach House (whom we had seen in that very space a few months earlier–he didn’t try to sound like her, but he did hit the notes in his range.

They played a song from Grizzly Bear, and TV on the Radio and  then they took some requests.  and they were game for anything they could try, like MGMT, Son of a Preacher Man, Sugar Sugar, Heart of Glass (he couldn’t decide on falsetto or not), Joni Mitchell, Sex and Candy (!), Peter Bjorn and John’s Young Folks (they were supposed to play Philly during the pandemic and haven’t come back yet, so I was happy to hear this version of it.

About half way through this he said that the show was over and they were just goofing off, so anyone could feel free to leave if they wanted to.  But it was so much fun I’m sure no one did.  I was fascinated that so many people were holding up requests in their phones.  Like James’s Laid and Santeria (!).  I loved that Ezra didn’t always know the words, but that the band was right on it playing a great sound of these covers.

Someone asked for M79 and since the violin was right there, it was played (albeit in a shortened form).  And after a Bob Dylan song they played Walcott, which was so much bouncy fun.

They ended the night in a very funny way, by playing the closing music from Saturday Night Live.  They brought everyone on stage, including the folks of Geese and even the folks in the dayglo vests.

And Matt Irwin recorded the entire 35 minute encore:

			2025
			Hold You Now ∂
			Oxford Comma ≤
			One (Blake’s Got a New Face) ≤
			Ice Cream Piano ⇑
			Classical ⇑
			Connect ⇑
			Unbelievers ¥
			Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa ≤
			This Life ∂
			Stranger ∂
			Diplomat’s Son ¢
			Giving Up the Gun ¢
			We Belong Together (acoustic)  ∂
			Don’t Lie (acoustic)  ¥
			Ruben and Cherise (Jerry Garcia band cover) (acoustic)
			I Think Ur a Contra (acoustic) ¢
			Capricorn ⇑
			Gen-X Cops ⇑
			Diane Young ¥
			A-Punk ≤
			Campus ≤
			Mary Boone ⇑
			Hannah Hunt ¥
			Harmony Hall ∂
			encore
			Lisztomania (Phoenix cover)
			The Less I Know the Better (Tame Impala Cover)
			Space Song (Beach House cover)
			Two Weeks (Grizzly Bear cover)
			Wolf Like Me (TV on the Radio cover)
			Electric Feel (MGMT cover)
			Son of a Preacher Man (Dusty Springfield cover)
			Sugar, Sugar (The Archies cover)
			Heart of Glass (Blondie cover)
			Big Yellow Taxi (Joni Mitchell cover)
			Sex and Candy (Marcy Playground)
			Young Folks (Peter Bjorn & John cover)
			Bitter Sweet Symphony (The VEerve cover)
			Laid (James cover)
			Santeria (Sublime cover)
			M79 (shortened) ≤
			Like a Rolling Stone (Bob Dylan cover)
			Walcott ≤
			SNL Closing Theme (A Waltz in A)/>
			Flower Moon ∂

⇑ Only God was Above Us (2024)
∂ Father of the Bride (2019)
¥ Modern Vampires of  the City (2013)
¢ Contra (2010)
≤ Vampire Weekend (2008)