Vampire Weekend + Yacht - Neumos (Seattle, WA; Mar. 26, 2008)

Present day
The time: A snowy(!?), cold, late evening on Wednesday March 26th 2008
The setting: a moderately sized music club on trendy capitol hill.  Formerly known as Moe’s, now using the Marquee “Neumos.”

Completely disappointed that I couldn’t get a single friend to see these guys when they came by last September on a bill with Jamie T, Maps, Joy Wants Eternity, and Das Llamas at the Crocodile, I decided early on that I would be going this time around, by myself if necessary. Perhaps part of the problem is that I had difficulty describing their sound: “ska influenced, poppy, reminds me of Paul Simon a bit? Syncopated, um, danceable, afro-influenced, too, and generally fun.” It’s now apparent to me that likely the problem lay in my inability to sell Vampire Weekend. This doesn’t seem to be the case anymore, however, as it seems their entire tour is sold out and they are the newish “hot-band.”

First though, a quick word about the Portland-based band, Yacht.

Hmm. What can we say about Yacht. The first thing I noticed was that were into the Bass. My ears were definitely rattling, perhaps even distorting. Their music has been described on the internet as electro, hip-hop, grunge and crunk. During the show I also felt the words “performance art” come to mind as the two members (Jona Bechtolt and Claire Evans) were quite in sync and had definitely choreographed some moves, particularly those that involved the microphone: tapping and swinging it, playing it like a shaker and turning in unison with the beat. I found myself wondering at several points in the set, “Where did they go?” The answer: crawling around on the stage and later walking down an aisle they created in the audience. They also enlisted our participation at one point with requests for “jazz hands.”

Although it took me a little bit to warm up to the entire effect of Yacht, I found myself smiling more and more as the set went on, which would make the lead singer proud, as his life motto is “no bad days, no bad dreams.” I appreciated their sense of humor as they sang warnings about the internet, “protecting my eyes,” and told us we could live anywhere we want (in a cave, on a beach, in a small town etc.). I found that the repetitive, often spoken-word vocals contrasted, yet somehow complimented, the funky beats and harsher bass lines. Oh, and they apparently got the memo that it would in fact be rain-snow-raining as they took the stage in their raincoats.

While the opening duo might be named Yacht, the boys of Vampire Weekend looked like they were the ones ready for a boat with their Dockers, white tennis shoes, polo shirts, sweaters, and other general yacht-club attire (note: I’ve never actually belonged to a yacht-club and base this description solely on old movie stereotypes). As Stephanie says, “They look like young members of the Kennedy clan who decided to start a band.” The oh-so-adorable Rostam Batmanglij (keyboards, guitar, vocals) was even wearing shorts with his sweater and hat. Perhaps he knew it would be snowy outside yet balmy inside? Fortunately, shitty weather only reigned outside, as inside the sunny sounds of Afro-pop-influenced music, close quartered body heat and, ok we have to mention this, some nice looking fellows made the show pretty hot overall.

Vampire Weekend isn’t really the chatty type as they promptly launched into “Mansard Roof,” the first track off their wildly popular album. Once the cheers died down, I was able to focus on the rapid drumming (at times at almost a march) of Chris Tomson and the constant, zig-zag, front-back pacing motions of bass player Chris Baio. These boys were constantly in motion; Ezra Koenig even took a moment to show off some of his own dancing “prowess” while free from his guitar. They work hard to put on an entertaining show, evidenced by the sweat flying from the brows of all four band members.

Three songs into the set, they played “M79,” which is probably my favorite song on the album. It sounded a bit different live however, as they weren’t traveling with a string section and therefore lacked the cool cello parts, which vaguely remind me of the strings on the ska classic “Come on Eileen.” This is not to say it wasn’t enjoyable, though, as the other best parts of the tune are the bright vocals and guitar of Ezra Koenig and the backing, group vocals, which the crowd felt was necessary to embellish upon. VW followed “M79” with another clear crowd favorite, “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa,” which started out a little slower than the album but picked up speed as it went along and again features Koenig’s guitar and vocal talents, his singing pretty close to that on the album. “The Kids don’t stand a chance” outro was also notably different sans strings arrangement.

Koenig did make an effort to further include the crowd, asking us to participate in a call-and-response play on “Blake’s Got A New Face.” He made some reference to it being like a trust fall in the woods—although I’m not where the risk comes in, and the crowd clearly loved the chance to participate. Koenig also encouraged people to impress that “special someone” they might have brought along by showing off their dancing skills to A-Punk. The crowd energetically obliged, or at least tried its best.

Speaking of the audience, by the time the set closed with “Oxford Comma,” the crowd had jumped their way forward and several audience members were doing their best to drunkenly slam-dance or whatever the kids are calling it these days. Personally, I think I could have enjoyed these fellows even more if I was back on a beach in Belize bopping and dancing around on some sandy floor, but we can’t always get everything we want.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the music but felt the show flew by rather quickly. This is partially attributed to how much fun everyone was having, but also the fact that Vampire Weekend only has one short album under their collective belts. They themselves admitted as much, noting this was one of the longest sets they’ve played so far, and mentioning they were working on some new stuff. I just hope when they come back with said tunes, they won’t have graduated to full scale auditoriums because I fear the laid-back, danceable nature of their fun music might get lost.

For more fun background on why the band’s name sounds like a film (hint: because they are stars of a movie) go here. Thank you KEXP.

Also, I might mention: I may or may not have used an Oxford comma in this review. 

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