Vampire Weekend @ The Horseshoe Tavern

12 February 2008, Allan @ 6:30 pm

Monday, February 11th, 2008 was one fucking cold day. Sorry for the profanity but it was extremely cold and making the trip downtown definitely sucked. Anyway I personally haven’t been to many concerts and this marks my first time in the legendary Horseshoe Tavern. The place to my surprise was smaller then Lee’s Palace and it was pretty crappy as there seemed to be no coat check so many members of the audience placed it on the stage.

The place was a packed house and was sold out with tickets going for as much as 3 times the price on eBay. I was lucky enough to be on the guest list. Big thanks to Vampire Weekend! I love you guys .

The German’s are a band out of Mississauga were the opener and were entertaining with both their jokes and rather circus of set as each member switched instruments after each song. They also had an extra pair of drummers and ultimately being an extremely loud set. The highlight of their set was when one of the members (hard to explain who when they kept alternating but one of the main vocalists) decided to kill time as the band had to replace a guitar. The member seemed to dislocate his arms out of shoulder sockets showing off his extreme flexibility (a picture does more justice then words) to loud cheers and a few groans as well. Not a bad opener at all.

Vampire Weekend is superb alive. They sound amazing live showing us their sound is authentic and not a result of production. Ezra Koenig is a great singer despite some naysayers I’ve seen across the internet. Vampire Weekend chatted with the crowd in between songs and they definitely didn’t seem shy at all. It was good to see the band so into it during songs as bassist Chris Baio would be screaming and it would good to see them quite passionate. The crowd was also very into it where I heard singing along to every song and some dancing with a few guys from the crowd. We got to hear one new track, I’m not sure what it’s called but it included Ezra highlighting California. If future tracks are like this then Vampire Weekend is going to be huge.

The only downside to seeing Vampire Weekend is that I wanted to hear more. They do have only one album out but their set felt short. It could be that they were so good that I wanted them to keep playing but either way I definitely would like to see them again. Based on talent I would say I enjoyed the concert as much as The Arcade Fire’s show. Whoever says Vampire Weekend sucks live is just a hater as they were excellent and everyone seemed to enjoy it.

I think I’ve uploaded one too many Vampire Weekend tracks so I’ll put up their cover of Radiohead’s Exit Music (for a film).