Vampire Weekend Debuts Paul Simon Cover In London

Vampire Weekend ended their run of “Three Little London Shows” on Saturday morning at Islington Assembly Hall in London. The band paid tribute to one of its biggest influences by debuting a Paul Simon cover at a show with a 10 a.m. start time that also featured a bust out and the second rendition of a recently revived cover.

The “Three Little London Shows” come in advance of the release of Father Of The Bride, the long-awaited follow up to 2013’s Modern Vampires Of The City and an accompanying world tour. Vampire Weekend played four tunes from the new LP, which is due on May 3. The studio versions of all four songs have been issued by the band recently.

VM mixed material from throughout their career in London and fit a trio of covers within their morning performance. The first cover was “Late In The Evening” from Paul Simon’s 1980 studio album One-Trick Pony. While Vampire Weekend has been compared to Simon since the release of Vampire Weekend in 1980, Saturday was the first time the group covered their fellow New Yorker as per Setlist.FM. Next came a take on Bruce Springsteen’s “I’m Goin’ Down,” a song they dusted off after nine years the previous evening. The trio of covers closed with the return of Fleetwood Mac’s “Everywhere,” which was last played by Vampire Weekend in 2009. Saturday’s concert also included three versions of “A-Punk” in a repeat of a feat the group pulled off at Lollapalooza last summer and a four-song encore that contained the “Morning Version” of “Giving Up The Gun.” Watch fan-shot video of “Late In The Evening” captured by Rebecca Sowell:

Here’s the studio version of “Everywhere” Vampire Weekend released in 2008:

Check out a prior version of “I’m Goin’ Down”:

Setlist