Vampire Weekend

Academy, 09/02/10

By Jack Ready

As if anyone still required proof of the apparently exponential growth of Vampire Weekend’s commercial appeal, then the wide range of demographics in attendance here ought to have them convinced. School-kids, students, ‘hip’ middle-aged couples and a fair few parents with pre-teen girls are all out in force to see a band whose keen sense of melody and tight calypso rhythms have enabled them to bridge the generation gap in a way remarkably few bands have achieved recently.

Before the four Ivy League boys make their appearance, however, comes the intriguing combination of musical and visual influences that is tour support act Fan Death. Featuring an ET doll, an escaped Queen of Noise, Riff-Raff from Rocky Horror and yet another front-woman whose clothes, stage presence and vocal style all attest to the fact that she (mistakenly) believes herself to be Karen O, Fan Death come out looking like a great big walking stereotype. Whilst a set of fairly bog-standard electro-pop tunes doesn’t exactly do much to steady that particular ship, there is no doubt that the band have one or two redeeming features; the use of strings in their melody lines is certainly refreshing, and the powerhouse drumming carries the tunes along at a riotous pace. In particular, a pair of songs that sound like Bat For Lashes and the Grease theme tune respectively sound rather good.

By the time Vampire Weekend finally emerge, the floor is looking suitably packed. Tearing off into ‘White Sky’, the standard for the night is set. The band: tight, efficient and clearly having a good time. The crowd: lively, energetic and apparently more than willing to sing along to Ezra Koenig’s bizarre yelps and wails in spite of their total inability to get near the notes. Some new material - ‘Holiday’, ‘Cousins’ and ‘Run’ especially - is greeted enthusiastically by the crowd; quite impressive given that Contra was only released a month ago. Of course, the biggest reactions of the night are reserved for the major sing-alongs from their 2008 debut. ‘A-Punk’, ‘Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa’ and ‘Oxford Comma’ are all received with rapturous approval, and even the technicolour delight of ‘M79’ translates extremely well into a live setting.

If anything, tonight is a sign of a band most definitely on the rise. As their sophomore album is about to hit number 1 in the United States and boasting a crowd as diverse as anything that Coldplay could muster, Vampire Weekend are clearly on the verge of following in the footsteps of Kings of Leon and breaking into the big-time. Tonight’s set sends the fans home happy, but most encouragingly (and especially significant given KoL’s collapse at Reading last year) the band seem to leave happy as well. (8)