By: David Schultz

Hailing from the hallowed halls of Columbia University, Vampire Weekend are tailor made to bear the brunt of the slings and arrows that outrageous fortune brings upon any buzzed-about band. On their self-titled debut, released last week, the Ivy Leaguers precociously dive into all sorts of African rhythms and sing about the thrills of fleeing Cape Cod and rail against punctuation. It’s as if someone took the Arctic Monkeys, housetrained them and had them brainwashed by Emily Post. If they weren’t so damn good, you would probably stand in line to punch them in the face.

Last week, Vampire Weekend hosted a two night sold-out stint at New York City’s Bowery Ballroom that served as a record release party for the first effort on XL Recordings. Much like the Cold War Kids first album, Vampire Weekend doesn’t target the fans that have helped grow their reputation; rather, it packages the best of the white-hot indie band’s tunes and makes them easily accessible to a wider audience. Practically the entire album has been available for quite some down on various EPs as well as strewn throughout the Internet in various bits and pieces. If you’ve lived in the New York City area or regularly peruse the mp3 blogs, you’re likely very familiar with Ezra Koenig (guitar), Rostam Batmanglij (keys), Chris Tomson (drums) and Chris Baio (bass). It’s going to be interesting to see if the same swirl of goodwill that happened on a small scale can happen on The National level. (pun very much intended).

Regardless of what happens outside of their control, Vampire Weekend are an intriguing band with a refreshingly bright sound. For their Wednesday night show, they opened with “Mansard Roof” and then hit many of the album’s highlights, including “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” and the brilliantly bubbly “Bryn.” Not long after they started, they closed the set proper with “Oxford Comma” and, after a short break, returned to close the night with “Walcott,” giving everyone a glimpse as to how “Born To Run” would have turned out if Bruce Springsteen was a trust fund baby.

Quite possibly, the rich boy and literary references are supposed to be ironic; on the other hand, maybe this is how the college kids are rebelling these days. Whatever the reason, VW are the only band that will give you the opportunity to publicly display your disdain for a subtle piece of punctuation you’ve likely never heard of before. (For those who are curious, an oxford comma is one that precedes “and” or “or” when listing a series of things).

Despite a name more apropos of a goth metal group, Vampire Weekend’s songs are especially bright and bouncy. They mix together a wonderful blend of afro-pop, ska and other African rhythms with an undercurrent of punk rock that was more pronounced in a live setting. If you dug deep into what they were doing on stage you could hear The Clash lurking in the midst. There’s probably a socio-political component inherent to four white college students embracing African music and adopting it in the same manner as Peter Gabriel – namechecked on “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” - and Paul Simon during his Graceland/Rhythm Of The Saints period. When the resulting music is this playful and enjoyable, we can leave the pontificating at home.

With one album, as buzzworthy as it may be, Vampire Weekend had a limited amount of material with which to work; their one album clocks in at just over thirty minutes. Even with the addition of a couple new songs, one of which Koenig offered to let the audience name, the night flew by quite quickly. Factoring in the encore break, VW strained to make it to the 45 minute mark. It was a shame because the audience was eager for more.

Vampire Weekend have a number of very catchy tunes that refuse to grow tiresome with repetition. It’s a trait of many songs and artists that find wild success on the pop charts. They will surely face the stereotypical backlash that accompanies any growing band but in the end, Vampire Weekend are more fun to listen to then they are to analyze . . . even if the Arctic Monkeys would kick their collared-shirt wearing asses in a bar fight.

Labels: Vampire Weekend