Vampire Weekend @ The PalaceTheatre, Melbourne (04/05/10)

Wed 5th May, 2010 in Gig Reviews

Vampire Weekend played a show at the Prince of Wales in St. Kilda in 2008. About halfway through the set, lead singer Ezra Koenig turned to the crowd and said “we’re really sorry guys, we don’t really have that many songs to play. We haven’t written them yet”.

It was just after the release of their self titled debut and while the set was memorable for its energy and style, Koenig’s words spoke volumes about the place Vampire Weekend were at two years ago. While their album was being raved about all around the world, the simple fact was that they could barely fill a 45 minute set.

With two years of touring and another album under their belts (this year’s excellent Contra ), they have returned to Melbourne and played last night to a sold out band room at the Palace Theatre. To put it briefly, more songs have been written: and they are awesome.

Support act Cloud Control (a highly rated four-piece pop outfit from Sydney) started at 9:00. The doors to the Palace opened at 7:30. I got there at 8:15. There are no passouts at the Palace.

I don’t know whether it bothers anyone else but I’m starting to get fed up with venues not giving away the set times before the gig starts. I know they do it so it makes you hang around and buy drinks or whatever, but seriously what the hell are you supposed to do in an empty venue for 45 minutes when you’re not allowed to leave? The people who are going to buy beers will buy beers whatever time they get there so just help us out and be a little more forthcoming. Oh and if you were wondering, Cloud Control were nothing special.

The stage for Vampire Weekend was lit by chandeliers with a huge photo of a tanned blonde girl behind it. Both the chandelier and the girl appear on the bands record covers and make a neat summation of their music; sophisticated yet down to earth, intricate but heartfelt.

The set kicked off with two of the most interesting cuts from the new album; White Sky and Holiday. The first is a sunburst slinking slice of pop built around an electronic arpeggio before exploding in a glorious chorus of whoops and yells from Koenig. The second is positively anthemic, a song which derives its magic from the duelling guitars of Koenig and multi instrumentalist Rostram Batmanglij.

On record, Vampire Weekend sound tight. In a live setting they are even tighter. Ezra Koenig is precision personified; his voice and guitar are incapable of missing a note. The high register of his melodies is well complemented by the chirpy riffs of bass player Chris Baio and the electronic decoration of Batmanglij.

They seem capable of welding their style with any genre, from the brilliant rendering of Afro-pop on Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa to the pretty Calypso strains of Horchata, to stately baroque pop on M79. They even use Auto-Tune on California English. All the songs were delivered perfectly (despite some rasping speakers) and with an infectious enthusiasm.

They can make you dance too. My legs are still sore and my shirts smells like sweat after the energy I and others expended moving around to the manic chords of set standout A-Punk or the propulsive rhythm of Cousins. The light show too was superb throughout, adding energy to the key moments in the set, like the red spotlight that isolated Koenig during slow burner I Stand Corrected, and the palpitating yellow strobes on set closer Walcott.

There were at least half a dozen songs which were just as good, and I’d love to mention them all, but maybe that’s the point. After this album, Vampire Weekend will never have to worry about filling a set again.

Check out the photos from the gig