Drummer Chris Tomson and frontman Ezra Koenig from American indie rock band Vampire Weekend perform at the Molson Amphitheatre on Sept. 7, 2010.Sarah Dea
Vampire Weekend
At Molson Amphitheatre in Toronto on Tuesday
It looked for a while as if Vampire Weekend had fetched up at the wrong venue entirely. The lawn area was empty and closed, and great unpeopled gaps appeared in the second tier of fixed seating. Lead singer Ezra Koenig greeted the crowd with the news that "This is our first time at the Molson Thunderdome." Mine too, and I've been there lots.
But love can overcome much, if not all, and the fans who crowded the large lower ring and the pit before the stage made the place seem full of their devotion. And although the amphitheatre isn't an ideal venue for the New York quartet's shiny Afro-pop tunes, these exploded into the warm night air with the cozy splendour of fireworks that will never hurt you, no matter how close you get.
The New York quartet played through almost all of their songbook (two albums, the latest of which, Contra, hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts last winter), plus a cover of Bruce Springsteen's I'm Going Down. That was an astute choice, and a revealing one: for all their smarty-pants allusions to Oxford commas and such, Vampire Weekend has become a real big-tent kind of band.
After months on the road, the often subtly-tinted songs of Contra had lost some of their delicacy, but become as tough as steel, the flexible kind. The show was tight from beginning to end, and if anyone on stage was fatigued from doing this work night after night, they concealed it completely.
In fact, they seemed to have hung on to the bloom and enthusiasm that young bands acquire when things really start to come together. Enthusiasm is also the main thing that the songs project, even those with sad or alienated lyrics. The crowd greeted each tune, quite reasonably, as a celebration, as if the buoyant rhythms and affirmative keyboard harmonies (nobody else in pop can play major triads as brightly as Rostam Batmanglij) were the happy solutions to the problems posed in the lyrics. Even I Think UR A Contra sounded more like a lullaby than a disillusioned kiss-off.
Many people sang through the whole show, shadowing Koenig's yelping performance with a persistent choral undertone. He hinted a couple of times that maybe they didn't need to join in for every line, but this was one of those shows where people needed to perform their love, with each other and the band.
I found it easier to admire the band's energy and discipline (and showmanship - for a nerdy kind of guy, Koenig is remarkably charismatic on stage) than to get swept away by its songs. I was entertained without being moved, but I was in a small minority.
Prior to the main event, Beach House appeared for what felt like so many gorgeous performances of the same song. Victoria Legrand has a fantastic big voice - rich, warm and a bit spooky - but persisted in channelling it down the same dreamy mid-tempo gully. The band's half-hour set seemed to go on forever.
Vampire Weekend also played the Metropolis in Montreal Wednesday, with Beach House and Dum Dum Girls.