\n<\/p>\n
\n\tAs chaotic and inventive as Vampire Weekend\u2018s arrangements get over five studio albums, things never feel out of control. The production and mixing are impressively ornate, a wedding cake that could topple if one note lands out of place. And while the instrumentation and complexity of their songs have only grown through the years \u2014\u00a0leading up to 2024\u2019s excellent and dense fifth album, \u201cOnly God Was Above Us\u201d \u2014 the band\u2019s live show has only loosened, allowing for some shaggy dog moments on fan favorites. Fortunately, the music is all the better for it.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe band, nearing the end of the second leg of their marathon \u201cOnly God\u201d tour, stopped by Montclair, New Jersey\u2019s tiny Wellmont Theater to play four nights as a hometown gig for singer and guitar player Ezra Koenig and drummer Chris Tomson, who were raised in the Garden State. Considering the band played two shows at Madison Square Garden the last time they were in the tristate, the venue created an intimacy perfect for the set\u2019s opening. The band, a trio with bassist Chris Baio, began the Sept. 18 show with low-fi renditions of band-defining hits \u201cUnbelievers,\u201d \u201cHoliday\u201d and \u201cOne (Blake\u2019s Got a New Face),\u201d instant sing-alongs which played to the group\u2019s earlier, spikier instincts.<\/p>\n
\n\tWith the drop of a curtain, the band went into new record mode with a trio of Side-A songs from \u201cOnly God,\u201d flanked by a large touring band with five more musicians. While the gang certainly fleshed out the sound, it did leave Koenig\u2019s vocals constantly at the edge of audibility \u2014\u00a0which, to be fair, might have been a result of the much-smaller venue. But while one could ask if Vampire Weekend is the sort of band that needs<\/em> a second drum set, manned by percussionist Garrett Ray, or two additional guitars to supplement Koenig\u2019s sharp playing, it does allow their compositions to have more texture.<\/p>\n \n\tAround ten songs into their two-hour-plus show, the band grew much looser, taking the 2019 cut \u201cSunflower\u201d for a walk. The Grateful Dead-inspired track sounded sharp with the fleet of musicians tackling the groove, and it was clear this was the direction the band found most exciting. Jammier moments never derailed the tighter songs, but rather gave them a dash of new energy, be it piano flourishes during the verses of \u201cHarmony Hall\u201d or sax in \u201cCousins.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe new feel to these hits imprinted into fans\u2019 brains never made them unrecognizable, but it was refreshing to hear the band finding sly new ways into material they\u2019ve played endlessly. In a year where more and more bands with Millennial fanbases are touring in order to cash out on album anniversaries and monetize the warm, fuzzy feelings of youth, it\u2019s nice to know that Vampire Weekend is nowhere near a nostalgia act. Instead, they\u2019re a band worth growing old with.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As chaotic and inventive as Vampire Weekend\u2018s arrangements get over five studio albums, things never feel out of control. The production and mixing are impressively ornate, a wedding cake that could topple if one note lands out of place. And while the instrumentation and complexity of their songs have only grown through the years \u2014\u00a0leading<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22955,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[861,189,3514,6683,241],"class_list":{"0":"post-22954","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-band","9":"tag-finds","10":"tag-jersey","11":"tag-peak","12":"tag-show"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}