Live Review: Vampire Weekend At UIC Pavilion
By Matt Byrne in Arts & Entertainment on Jun 6, 2014 7:00PM
Barely stopping to take a breath, Vampire Weekend tore through nearly 20 punchy, three-minute off-kilter pop gems last night at their sold-out UIC Pavilion show. Older songs would flow into new ones (Contra's "Horchata" into Modern Vampires of the City's "Everlasting Arms" was a mid-set highlight), much to the delight of the ecstatic crowd, which seemed divided fairly evenly between college-aged, sleeveless Lolla bros, twenty-to-thirty-something indie rock nerds, and excitable cool teens/tweens, including some surprisingly young folks (we're talking 10 to12-years-old).
Modern Vampires of the City, the band's most recent record is their weirdest (and best) to date, incorporating obtuse production choices and left-field references into 11 pop nuggets that zig when you expect them to zag. Though Modern Vampires debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 and won a Grammy for Best Alternative Album, it was still a bit strange seeing the band in such a large venue, a task they handled fairly well. The band deftly (with only one or two rhythmic rough patches along the way) reworked the densely textured tracks from their newest record into a live setting, with all four band members seemingly sharing sample triggering and vocal pitch shifting duties.
The stage's modest yet charming set design boasted a magic mirror, showing various short video clips synced up with a handful of songs throughout the night, as well as a handful of Roman columns that suggested ironic decadence, but, as the night went on, started looking sort of homemade. The look almost suggested the band was performing on a stage currently occupied, during the day, by a high school production of Julius Caesar. After the first few songs, the stage's all-white backdrop collapsed to reveal a warm floral pattern, lending a more lighthearted atmosphere to the potentially self-serious settings.
The band drew from all three records fairly liberally, offering a pretty even mix of tracks, with a slight emphasis on cuts from Modern Vampires. Though the bands earliest material was met with the rowdiest response ("A-punk," which opens the dorm room classic Step Brothers, with its "Hey! Hey! Hey!" chorus, was an obvious crowd favorite), the evening's two showstoppers, which came later in the game, were from their second and third records. The first truly transcendent moment came during Contra's "Giving Up The Gun," which remains one of their best songs. The band was never more locked in than during this strobe-heavy, percussive performance, which lengthened a few instrumental breaks, blissfully extended the climax and showed that they were totally capable of playing to thousands in an arena.
Encore opener and Modern Vampire set piece "Hanna Hunt" was decidedly more subtle in its execution, but reached highs almost as high as "Giving Up The Gun." The focus during this song was placed squarely on the affable, if slightly out-of-his-depth stage presence of frontman Ezra Koenig, whose voice and songwriting chops have gotten stronger with every record. "Hanna Hunt," a tender ballad drenched in distant piano lines and strange whirrs and hums (replicated live by multi-instrumentalist Rotsam Batmanglij, the band's not-so-secret weapon), packed a huge emotional punch, especially during its mournful, evocative final chorus.
After a wildly successful 2013, Vampire Weekend show no signs of stopping. They've spent the first half of the year touring relentlessly, coming into their own as a full-blown arena act without forgetting the twitchy rhythmic tics and offbeat production style that makes them unique. Last night's show is proof positive they're fully capable of ascending to the next tier as touring musicians and performers.