WORDS AND IMAGES: KATE SCOTT | Vampire Weekend returned to Chicago just in time for Father’s Day. While this wouldn’t seem like an important day for a concert, the band’s most recent album title, Father of the Bride, made Father’s Day a fitting evening for their Chicago concert. The new album is refreshingly catchy and breezy, and lead singer Ezra Koenig was in top form to sing the band’s freshest tunes.
While most bands play a respectable 15-20 songs per show, Vampire Weekend played 31, a nearly 3 hour show. As fans huddled together outside on an unusually cold Sunday night, Koenig and company played new singles like “This Life” and “Sunflower” before treating everyone to some of the classics. The band played a 6-minute rendition of their most popular single, “A-Punk,” as well as “Oxford Comma” and “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa.”
For their encore, Vampire Weekend asked fans to pick some of their final tunes. They played both “Boston (Ladies of Cambridge)” and “One (Blake’s Got a New Face)” before ending the night with “Walcott,” another track from their debut album. The band’s setlist has been different every night, ensuring that no two concerts (or concert-going experiences) are quite the same.
