Review by Val Tapia
Photos by Fred Kuhlman
Promoter: Live Nation (https://www.livenation.com/ )
Venue: Arizona Financial Theatre (https://www.livenation.com/venue/KovZpZAEk7lA/arizona-financial-theatre-events )
Date: Sunday June 9th, 2024
Tour: Only God Was Above Us
New York based Vampire Weekend are probably on cloud nine as I write this. In April, the indie favorites released their fifth studio album, Only God Was Above Us, to respectable reviews from fans and critics. Many have considered it the band’s most mature and ambitious work to date.
To that end, I guess it should come as no surprise to its loyal fan base that the band played no less than eight songs at their show this past Sunday (6/9) at Arizona Financial Theatre. By the way, I still call it the Dodge Theatre. But that’s another topic for another day.
Kicking off the 24-song set with Holiday (from 2010’s Contra), the band got off to a rousing start with the sold-out crowd. I’ll concede that I’m not familiar with most of Vampire Weekend’s music. For that reason, I tend to hear bits and pieces of other artists who came before them— fairly or unfairly.
Three more earlier songs followed: One (Blake’s Got A New Face) (from their 2008 self-titled debut album), Bambina (from 2019’s Father Of The Bride), and Bryn (also from the debut).
By the fifth song, they’ve now gotten the audience warmed up for the first new song of the night, Ice Cream Piano. At this point, the remaining trio of original members (lead vocalist/guitarist Ezra Koenig, bassist Chris Baio, and drummer Chris Tomson) were then joined by four additional (and quite exceptional) touring musicians: Will Canzoneri on keyboards, second drummer/ percussionist Garrett Ray and multi-instrumentalists Ray Suen and Colin Killalea.
This is when the show arguably kicked into gear. New songs like Classical, Capricorn, and Connect worked extremely well alongside the earlier material. The entire “septet” were clearly a well-oiled machine, musically and visually.
Violinist Suen was extremely impressive, especially given the fact that the songs never took a back seat to the extraordinary proficiency that he displayed. That I imagine is not easy to do, truth be told.
Koenig seems to have a good rapport with the audience and band members. To my ears, Vampire Weekend come across as a hybrid of Weezer, Kings of Leon, and even Jimmy Eat World rolled into one. That’s probably the highest compliment I can give them overall, given that I’m not really familiar with their music as I stated earlier.
Funny thing I noticed. A few of the songs played were names of people: Diane Young, Hannah Hunt, and Mary Boone. Sure, plenty of songs out there are titled with someone’s name. I guess I hadn’t really noticed it until I saw Vampire Weekend play several of them.
Of course, I suppose it’s inevitable that the band is more or less obligated to play their now-classic A-Punk, which pretty much brought the house down.
Closing the main set was another newbie, Hope, which Koenig cited as one of his favorites on the new album.
Returning to the stage for a well-deserved encore, Koenig stated that he wasn’t sure if “this is the best part or the worst part of the show. We haven’t figured it out yet”.
The band proceeded to do snippets of seven well-known songs, but not in medley form. For that reason, I personally don’t count them as “songs” played. It was clearly just a lighthearted, somewhat spontaneous segment that unquestionably got the audience cheering and laughing.
Four of them were Whole Lotta Love (Led Zeppelin), Reptilia (The Strokes), Better Man (Pearl Jam), and Fast Car (Tracy Chapman), a classic “sleeper-hit” from 1988 that a new generation of young music fans picked up on when country singer Luke Combs released his version of the song last year.
In short order, the place went nuts. And the fans went home pretty happy after the two-hour plus set.
I should give a shout-out to the opening band, LA LOM, a Los Angeles-based trio that consists of guitarist Zac Sokolow, (standup) bassist Jake Faulkner, and drummer/percussionist Nicholas Baker. You want to talk “musically tight”? This band was it.
For a band that’s still largely unknown, they received a very warm response from the audience. Hopefully good things will come from them and to them in the not-too-distant future.
The final verdict? I’ll give the show a solid 3.5 out of five stars. There’s a little something for both longtime and new fans— the way it should be.
Vampire Weekend
Photos © Fred Kuhlman 2024, All Rights Reserved
La Lom
Photos © Fred Kuhlman 2024, All Rights Reserved
