Live Review: Not Even Technical Difficulties Could Dampen Vampire Weekend's Show

There’s probably been humans who’ve tried to compare a live show to a plane flight – something about take-offs and landings, journeys into new frontiers – but rarely does a live show actually resemble airline travel. But that’s what happened at Vampire Weekend’s Forum show, when a never-quite-explained ‘electrical problem’ delayed the set four songs in, leaving the audience stranded on the tarmac for 20 minutes checking their phones, growing restless, and wondering if we were ever going to get going already. That the band – grown to seven people on stage – came back out and played half a Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa before again being grounded, for another 10 minutes, only added to the air of unease, especially when frontman Ezra Koenig made a worrying comment about the tech staff attempting “one last thing” to try to fix the problem. Given the show was, for many in the audience, a respite from the hellfire horrors of a country combusting, the ‘technical difficulties’ felt like an ill omen; yet another thing going wrong.

Vampire Weekend @ The Forum. Photo by Stephen Hunter.

But, eventually, the problems were fixed, and the show went on. And on and on. With the added half-hour of troubleshooting, the gig went for three hours (with no support). Where the fourth Vampire Weekend LP, 2019’s Father Of The Bride, carried some obvi Grateful Dead vibes, here one was witness to the full jam band-isation of Vampire Weekend. For an outfit once visually synonymous with preppy boat shoes and V-neck sweaters, their stagewear tonight was all tie-dye and sports jerseys and comfy shoes and afros. Sunflower, 140 seconds of daffy noodling on record, was symbolically turned into a ten-minute fretboard-shredding workout. Sympathy’s bridge was blasted with double-kick drums and strobe lights. Rich Man (an economic inequality parable dedicated to Bernie Sanders) was taken to double-time then dropped back to half-time. White Sky was dowsed with hippy-dippy flange, and beckoned glow sticks and weed smoke from the crowd. And Horchata segued into an endless jam on New Dorp New York, replete with multiple solos, breakdowns, freakouts and guitar heroics.

Vampire Weekend @ The Forum. Photo by Stephen Hunter.

Amongst the jam band-ery, there were still those bright, melodic, verbose pop bangers with very wordy singalongs ensuing for Step and Unbelievers. How Long? and Harmony Hall were (crystal) clear, beautifully sung standouts from the new record and the madcap energy ratcheted up with the back-to-back-to-back Diane Young, Cousins and A-Punk. When time came to solicit audience requests, the fans turned deep cut: Diplomat’s Son, Ottoman, The Kids Don’t Stand A Chance (which was played, for real, as a reggae song). And finally, there was Ya Hey, an unexpectedly anthemic grappling with God and godlessness, religious reckoning and Saturn Return wanderings. With its spoken word interlude evoking festival grounds, there was a festival air here: grand gestures, giant, inflated beach-ball globes (evoking FOTB’s clip-art cover art) bouncing through the crowd, communal celebration. In the setting of a live show, set against a backdrop of loss – the words “through the fire and through the flames” hanging heavy – the spirit in the air, on close, was one of shared humanity. The cheers were many, hearty, filled with relief – just like when people applaud when a difficult flight finally touches down.