Vampire Weekend has taken their collegiate odes to east coast women and living and taken a more broad approach to songwriting with their latest release, “Modern Vampires of the City.” Is it inconceivable that VW had the best selling album in the land last week? An indie release no less. Number one on the Billboard charts with a spot at the top of most summer festivals in 2013 with a “Best New Music” from P4K. One could say this is the year of the vampire. Speaking of vampires, “True Blood,” starts this summer.
Despite not contributing the lion’s share of the vocals, Rostam Batmanglij (multi-instrumentalist), has staked his claim as a major creative force in the quartet composing song arrangements, writing and functioning as a utility man on stage. Monday night saw the NYC crew come into their own before a damp sold-out crowd with Rostam calling shots on stage setting the tone on most tracks. Lead singer, Ezra Koenig, has all but abandoned the songs of fast women from Cambridge in a setlist that was more extensive than most shows that they’re use to playing. Bassist Chris Baio hasn’t changed a step with his two step strum dance routing seeming to enjoy every moment of the evening and drummer Chris Tomson looked extremely well rested from his time off in Montana at Dude Ranch. The guys need a little more time to work out the kinks on the new material, but the handful of tracks performed from “MVOTC” had plenty of bite to keep the newer fans intrigued.
Vampire Weekend – Unbelievers (live on SNL) [mp3]
