Live Review: Vampire Weekend, Gang Of Youths

On a bitterly cold Melbourne summer's night, Gang Of Youths set about warming an expectant, youthful and enthusiastic crowd. While their brand of punk'n'roll is inconsistent, their energy is not. Gang Of Youths do an admirable job of getting the hordes ready for Vampire Weekend.

The four New Yorkers hit the stage to an explosion of light, bursting straight into Diane Young from 2013's Modern Vampires Of The City. The party is well and truly underway as White Sky and Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa flow into one another. Through these opening three songs, Vampire Weekend showcase their impressive catalogue, showing the strong stylistic thread that runs through their Afro-pop indie-rock.

Donning a Top Gun-esque flight suit, Ezra Koenig is the captain of the show, his falsetto as light and flighty as his plucky guitar playing, but what really shines at a Vampire Weekend show are the rhythms. In a live setting, the low-end team of Chris Tomson and Chris Baio produce a sound bolder and brasher than any studio recording allows. Tomson takes his drum sound into full-blown, Def Leppard-style, stadium rock territory at times. Baio isn't just playing bass up there; with his infectious grin, shoulders and hips jiving left and right, he's worthy of his own solo show.

Rostam Batmanglij briefly pokes his head up from behind his keyboards to start a call and response before breaking into Horchata, but the crowd needs no encouragement. Each big sing-along moment is met with fervour, particularly the unmistakable “Hey-hey-hey!” of A-Punk and Oxford Comma's “Little John, he always tells the truth”.

The crowd favourites all go down saccharin sweet, but tracks from Modern Vampires Of The City are right up there as highlights later in the set. All but disappearing behind darkness with a dash of backlighting, the band let Koenig's flawless vocals and Batmanglij's erstwhile piano keys on Obvious Bicycle fill the hall with their touching refrains before leaving the stage to rapturous applause.

Vampire Weekend return to the stage after a short time with Hannah Hunt. The crowd sings with slavish devotion, which proves the band's recent work is just as impactful. However, the band then go back to early tracks One (Blake's Got A New Face) and Walcott to get bodies bouncing one last time. From such a joyous band, this is a fittingly bombastic end to the night.