It was “Ska Night” at the Hollywood Bowl, at least according to Vampire Weekend. Considering the touchstone indie-rock band was calling the shots as headliners on this particular evening in early June, a packed house of 17,000 fans was more than happy to play along. Over the course of a two-hour-plus set, Ezra Koenig, Chris Baio, Chris Tomson, and their ever-changing cast of supporting talent touched on seemingly every corner of their band’s catalog—with some stylistic reworks, impromptu covers, and surprise guests to boot.
After entertaining warmup sets by Voodoo Glow Skulls and The English Beat, Vampire Weekend’s core trio took the stage in front of a deceptively simple setup. With just a block-lettered banner of the band’s name as the backdrop, Vampire Weekend got the crowd hopping with high-octane hits “Holiday” and “Cousins” before dropping in a deeper cut of “Boston (Ladies of Cambridge)”.
The band’s first dip into its latest release, 2024’s Only God Was Above Us, came courtesy of “Ice Cream Piano”. With the transition in tempo during that song, the curtain dropped to reveal the rest of the band onstage, in front of a facsimile of a New York City subway tunnel in progress. The run of songs from OGWAU continued with “Classical” and “Connect” before the band doubled back to earlier releases for “White Sky” and “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa”.
From there, Vampire Weekend threw some love (and set time) toward 2019’s Father of the Bride for a sequence of “This Life”, “Sunflower”, and “Sympathy”. The middle of those tracks brought the first instance of actual ska by way of a stylistically modified, jam-leaning addendum. Ezra then wove that theme back in for a full-fledged ska version of “Ottoman”, dubbed “Skattoman”.
Following the headiness of “The Surfer” and the classic sing-along of “Oxford Comma”, Vampire Weekend welcomed renowned music producer and long-time collaborator Ariel Rechtshaid onstage to lend his textured guitar work to “Capricorn” and “Gen-X Cops”. The back-to-back of “Diane Young” and “A-Punk” got the crowd dancing in the aisles again, just before a more mellow stretch marked by “Prep School Gangsters”, “Mary Boone”, and a rare appearance from “Hannah Hunt” (its tenth of the 2020s per Setlist.fm).
To close the main set, the band brought the vibes back up with the triumphant tandem of “Harmony Hall” and “Hope”, and the encore was chock full of fun surprises.
Right off the bat Vampire Weekend dropped in “Dangerous Knife (The Night is a Knife)”, which the band wrote for the sketch comedy show I Think You Should Leave, complete with a brief appearance from the alt-comedy show’s star, Tim Robinson.
Vampire Weekend, Tim Robinson — “Dangerous Knife (The Night Is A Knife)” — 6/12/24
The ska-ness of the evening returned for a frenetic, skank-worthy version of “Giving Up the Gun” before the band took some time for cover requests from the audience. That bit of crowd popcorn yielded bits of Steely Dan’s “Peg”, the Grateful Dead’s “Touch of Grey”, and The B-52’s‘ “Rock Lobster”. Ezra, though, kept his eye on the time and wrapped the show just under the venue’s curfew to avoid a hefty fine for the band. Before doing so, he and his bandmates bid attendees adieu with a long-time favorite, “Walcott”.
Whether Vampire Weekend brings back “Ska Night” or dabbles in other tongue-in-cheek themes on their tour remains to be seen. There will be ample opportunity for that kind of experimentation, though, as the band continues its North American tour through mid-October, before leaving for the U.K. and Europe in November. Find tickets and a full list of tour dates here.
Check out a gallery of images from Vampire Weekend “Ska Night” at Hollywood Bowl below courtesy of photographer Josh Martin along with some fan-shot videos by LiveShowEd Videos.
Vampire Weekend — “Oxford Comma” — 6/12/24
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