Reviews > Shows

Vampire Weekend at Mountain Park

Photo by Esther White

Vampire Weekend
Mountain Park
Holyoke, Mass.
September 13

Riding high on a growing wave of popularity, Vampire Weekend’s fall tour
(which included three sold out shows at Radio City Music Hall) was one of the most anticipated of the season. A couple of nights before its New York run, the quartet closed out the summer season at Mountain Park, a beautiful new venue nestled upon a scenic mountain in Western Massachusetts.

Taking the stage to strains of DJ Kahled’s “All I Do is Win,” the band launched into the ska influenced “Holiday,” sending a jolt of energy through the crowd which had been rather subdued during opening sets by indie buzz bands Dum Dum Girls and Beach House.

These four Columbia alums are as wholesome looking as Justin Bieber and sing about Cape Cod and good punctuation, making Vampire Weekend the perfect band to take home to mom. But surface polish aside, the band is a tight, dynamic outfit that didn’t miss a beat during their short but satisfying 75-minute set.

The foursome, led by Ezra Koenig on guitar and vocals and featuring Rostam Batmanglij on keyboards and guitar, Chris Baio on bass, and Christopher Tomson on drums, specialize in a catchy up tempo hybrid of indie-rock and Afro-pop.

Vampire Weekend are true crowd pleasers and had their fans feverishly dancing to favorites like Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” and loudly singing along to the chorus of “One (Blake’s Got a New Face.)” While both those songs were from the band’s 2008 breakthrough debut, the material from their latest album, “Contra,” translated equally well to the stage.

Tomson’s propulsive drumming against Koenig’s yelping vocals turned “Cousins” into an all out raucous affair. Koenig frantically strummed his guitar and tweaked his vocals with an autotune on the punky “English Breakfast.” The band rarely let the energy drop, but did slow it down for the melancholic “I Think Ur a Contra.”

If there was a flaw to this show it is that Vampire Weekend do not deviate at all from the recorded versions of their songs – so when they broke into a version of Bruce Springsteen’s “I’m Going Down” it constituted the only surprise of the night.

The band closed with the infectious “Oxford Comma” then returned to finish out the summer in style with the fast three-song encore of “Horshatta,” “Mansard Roof,” and “Walcott” that left the audience exhausted.