Got to love the hype machine. It has this way of artificially raising expectations to the point of absolutely assuring discerning music fans that this band is the biggest thing since the Beatles… or at least since the Arcade Fire. It also has a way of generating a backlash directly proportional to the size of the artificially raised expectations since, clearly, no band is going to achieve such a status, so what’s wrong with everybody?! If a band chooses to recognize those twin elephants on their back, it could be crushing to a live performance. In the face of all of this, Vampire Weekend acknowledged aloud last night that this was a big tour for them, but seemed as lighthearted as if the audience was filled with old friends.
In fact, the Rock and Roll Hotel housed a substantial amount of keyboardist Rostam Batamanglij’s extended family, as he’s originally from D.C. even though he “feels like a New Yorker.” He hasn’t completely neglected his roots, reminding Koenig that he needed to thank the entire D.C. metro area, including Virginia and Maryland, since not all of the Hotel’s patrons actually reside in the District.
The most refreshing aspect of Vampire Weekend is the realization that although many of their song titles and lyrics are geographically specific, their sound is not. They’ve called their sound “Upper West Side Soweto” and granted, there’s a lot of The Walkmen (especially in songs like “Mansard Roof”) living alongside those African rhythms. Still, they avoid sounding like a “New York band,” with sonic influences ranging from reggae to post-punk. There’s a little New Zealand and a little Jamaica in that Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa and during “I Stand Corrected”, lead singer Ezra Koenig channeled his best McCartney.
Regardless of who they counted as an influence, their clear M.O. was to get the audience dancing. During the high-energy “A-Punk”, Koenig told the audience that if we didn’t have much room to dance we could do a Twist and if we had the space, maybe a little Harlem Shake. His ability to deadpan lines like that in between adding drama to his vocal and facial expressions, especially during the sort of ridiculous “One (Blake’s Got a New Face)”, made him a commanding presence onstage.
