By Jamshid Ghazi Askar
Who: Vampire Weekend, with the High Highs
Venue: Red Butte Garden
Date: May 21
SALT LAKE CITY One week after the release of their third studio album, Modern Vampires of the City, Vampire Weekend played an eclectic and lively show Wednesday at the Red Butte Garden's outdoor amphitheater.
The Ivy League quartet opened their 18-song main set with Cousins and White Sky, two of the four singles from their sophomore album, Contra. Indeed, throughout the night Vampire Weekends set list drew most heavily from Contra, with tracks from their self-titled debut and Modern Vampires of the City intermittently peppered into the mix.
Frontman Ezra Koenig was consistently engaging in an understated way thats fairly rare for lead singers: He didnt resort to preening or screaming or hip-thrusting to sell his songs. Drummer Chris Tomsons raw energy dominated the first half of the show; he attacked his drum kit with equal parts precision and imagination. The most musically fungible member of the band, bassist Chris Baio, was also the man who endeared himself most to thecrowd via a seemingly never-ending stream of smiles and winks.
Conversely, guitarist/keyboardist Rostam Batmanglij proved to be something of an enigma for much of the night. Batmanglij appeared utterly disinterested as he sluggishly went through the motions on the left side of the stage. Batmanglij bottomed out during Horchata, when the crowd basically ignored his exhortations to sing along with part of the songs chorus.
Late in the main set, however, Batmanglij suddenly sprang to life. Nimbly alternating between his organ, keyboard console, array of distortion effects pedals and sunburst Fender Telecaster, Batmanglij was the secret sauce that elevated an already solid concert into a very memorable finish that included the final songs of Vampire Weekends main set and a subsequent encore.
Bathed in strobe lights and smoke machines, all four band members played with zealous gusto for the three-song encore of Diplomats Son, Giving Up the Gun and Walcott.
Beneath the shiny packaging of an energetic live performance, Vampire Weekends set list told a very interesting story. All the songs were the bands own that is, they played no covers. And the non-linear evolution of Vampire Weekend through their first three albums was also veryapparent: they sounded like a Cape Cod party band when playing songs from the Vampire Weekend debut; a group with emerging global sensibilities and refined musical tastes during the Contra tracks; and, finally, a quartet with increasingly sophisticated lyrics and focused arrangements on new songs like Diane Young and Ya Hey.
The High Highs a young three-piece outfit from Sydney, Australia opened for Vampire Weekend. The trio boasted a mellow synth-influenced sound and artful drumming, but the High Highs will need toemploy catchier hooks before they encounter any modicum of mainstream success.