There was once a time when Vampire Weekend shows were entirely predictable. Though their New York City indie rock has always felt audacious, imbuing post-punk with west African rhythm and literary lyrics, their collegiate cool never quite carried over to their live shows. Instead, they were tight, taut and unwaveringly faithful to their records.
Something changed dramatically in 2019, when they released their sprawling fourth album, Father of the Bride. They carried that album’s stylistic wanderlust onstage; an expanded live line-up turned songs old and new into slick, wandering jams.
Last night in Manchester, it seemed at the start that they had returned to their traditional approach – the core members (singer Ezra Koenig, bassist Chris Baio and drummer Chris Thomson) opened with a hat-trick of old songs, “Holiday”, “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” and “I Stand Corrected”. But to continue in this vein would go against the ethos of their fifth album – Only God Was Above Us, released in April – which is their most ambitious and experimental work to date, unafraid to wander down new stylistic avenues or indulge in clever self-reference.
So it’s no surprise when the curtain drops to reveal a seven-piece lineup ready to walk us through the album in all its complex glory. What is surprising is basically everything that comes next.
In impressionist pop number “Classical”, a member of the band’s road crew took to the stage for some interpretive dance during the instrumental breakdown. “Sunflower” was extended to accommodate both a fiddle battle and the Super Mario Bros “Underground Theme”. There was even room, during this two-and-a-half hour set, for a UK debut of the band’s “Cocaine Cowboys” medley, a countrified mish-mash that included a pause for an onstage game of cornhole – the game where players take turns throwing bean bags at a board with a hole in it to score points – during which a member of the audience was awarded a £300 cash prize.
If all of this sounds wildly indulgent, it was offset by the sheer number of indie pop bangers. A sublime three-song run of “Horchata”, “Campus” and “Oxford Comma”, in particular, reminded you of the band’s basic strengths: soaring melodies and the kind of irresistibly witty lyricism that led the music critic Jenny Eliscu to describe Koenig as “erudite as f**k”.
Still, there was something charming about seeing a band with a buttoned-up reputation cutting loose. Within this epic, extended set there was space for both rumination and exuberance; of the new material, “Gen-X Cops” and “Mary Boone” were the standouts, stately and thoughtful tracks about accountability and the ageing process. And then, for the encore, they took requests, gamely attempting everything from The Cardigans’ “Lovefool” to Chappell Roan’s “Hot to Go!”, although their version of Pulp’s “Common People” was the highlight.
That they’re so adept at balancing silliness and seriousness explains Vampire Weekend’s key appeal – and on this evidence they are the world’s foremost postmodern rock band.
