Vampire Weekend’s “Only God Was Above Us Tour” Brings the Divine Down to Earth

Vampire Weekend has come a long way since their first show in Chicago. 17 years after their inaugural set at the Empty Bottle, the indie rock mainstay played a blowout set at the Huntington Pavilion July 26.

Preceding Vampire Weekend was fellow early 2010s indie powerhouse Ra Ra Riot. Their set felt strangely truncated, restricted to a brief 25-minute window and notably lacking a few of their biggest songs. 

Vocalist Wes Miles’s soaring falsetto runs in the same register as Vampire Weekend frontman Ezra Koenig, which gave fans a brief taste of what was to come.

Ra Ra Riot closed with an enlivened performance of their 2016 single “Water” featuring former Vampire Weekend member Rostam Batmanglij. 

Following Ra Ra Riot was a delightfully strange addition to the lineup — SNL alum Maya Rudolph and her longtime friend singer-songwriter Gretchen Lieberum’s Prince cover band Princess. 

Their repertoire expanded beyond Prince classics, swinging from the “Cheers” opening theme to the recent TikTok hit “One Margarita (Margarita Song)” by Casa Di, Steve Terrell, and That Chick Angel. The oscillating set tickled audiences, who cackled all the way up in the nosebleeds. 

“Now you’re ready,” Rudolph said, referencing Vampire Weekend’s ensuing performance. “I told you I’d warm you up.”

Vampire Weekend took the stage adrift in a sea of bright, white lights. 

The band emerged from a mock subway tunnel, wide and gray with plastered concrete. However, the immediate impression seemed closer to the gaping mouth of a “Dune” sandworm or the backside of a satellite dish. 

Following their entrance, Vampire Weekend dove into the first song of the night, “Holiday.” The band delivered the brief, upbeat interlude from their sophomore album “Contra” in all its beachy glory.

“Holiday” was followed by fellow “Contra” single “Cousins.” The song is a self-reflective glance into privilege and the shallow creativity only those with wealthy parents can afford.

“Dad was a risk-taker, his was a shoemaker / You, ‘Greatest Hits 2006’ little list-maker,” Koenig sang.

Diving further into their discography, “One (Blake’s Got A New Face)” was next. A thrumming B-side from their first self-titled album, the song was presented as a sing-along for the crowd.

After skimming over the band’s younger discography, Vampire Weekend dipped into their newer, more mature sound, playing three songs off their latest album, “Only God Was Above Us.” 

In quick succession, “Ice Cream Piano,” “Classical” and “Connect” gave attendees a whirlwind tour through the front half of the album. Between the bouncing piano and light-hearted guitar that Vampire Weekend made their name on in the early days of the 2010s, a darker theme emerged — the introspective reckoning that begets middle age.

“I think we might have a perfect Chicago summer night right now,” Koenig said following the beautiful, discordant closure of “Connect.”

Marching on into that temperate night, the band rolled right into “White Sky,” “Unbelievers” and “This Life.” Recordings of Danielle Haim, who has a feature “This Life” and many of the songs on their 2019 album “Father of Bride,” filled the arena.

“Sunflower,” a “Father of the Bride” song featuring the artist Steve Lacy, followed. In Lacy’s stead was violin player Ray Suen, who continued with the band for the following tracks.

Colin Killelea played the saxophone on stage. Similar to Suen’s violin, the saxophone was a newer addition to the band’s sound and brought an added layer of sonic richness to each new track.

“The Surfer” is the closest Vampire Weekend has to a funeral dirge, leaving out the usual trilling, upbeat piano that permeates the band’s discography. Its assimilation into an otherwise musically cheerful set was aided by a grungier arrangement of “Bambina.” 

From the dark roots of “The Surfer” rose the spring flowers of college lawn classic, “Campus.” The crowd, enlivened by the opening bass thrums and familiar first verse, jumped to their feet. 

But one must graduate eventually, following “Campus” was its thematic twin flame on “Only God Was Above Us,” “Capricorn.” Following a brief poll of Capricorns in the audience — “Any Virgos?” Koenig asked. “There always seem to be more Virgos,” — the band played the opening notes. 

“Gen-X Cops” opened with a bevy of pitched-up police sirens and flashing red and blue lights. The song is a musical survey of young people’s anguish, with lyrics describing older generations’ perversion of the economy.

Heavy hitters “Diane Young” and “A-Punk” closed out the first half of the set. Both songs are highlights in the Vampire Weekend catalog, embodiments of the band’s mixture of Afrobeat-inspired drums and soaring piano.

“If Diane Young won’t change your mind / Baby, baby, baby, baby, right on time,” Koenig sang. 

Koenig then launched into a ten-minute-long arrangement of “Married in a Gold Rush.” The combination of “All the Gold in California” by Larry Gatlin & the Gatlin Brothers Band, “Sin City” by The Flying Burrito Brothers and “Cumberland Blues” by The Grateful Dead brought a certain Western tinge to the New York band’s Midwestern show.

The arrangement, dubbed Cocaine Cowboys at a genre-appropriate debut in Austin, Texas, dialed the excitement from the previous two songs up into the stratosphere. It also gave Koenig a more appropriate setting for that “Prairie Home Companion” inflection he has, despite having lived in New York for most of his life. 

Midway through the performance, an audience member named Michael was invited up on stage for the chance to win proverbial gold — provided he played a successful game of cornhole. 

Michael lavished praise upon Chicago then tossed once, twice, thrice — three swings, all misses. Despite this, Koenig awarded him $300 in cash for his troubles and closed with carnivalesque coda after coda of “gold rush!” 

Filling out the end of the set were powerhouse tracks “Prep-School Gangsters,” “Mary Boone” and “Harmony Hall.” The lights dimmed for “Mary Boone” and Koenig roamed the stage illuminated solely by a handheld fluorescent light, delivering verse after verse in near-darkness.

“I hope you like concerts,” Koenig said sheepishly after conducting an informal poll of audience members who hadn’t been to a concert before. “I hope we didn’t ruin them for you.” 

If “The Surfer” is a funeral, “Hope” is a beautiful, gut-wrenching exercise in melancholy. The band played itself off in the song’s final minutes, leaving one by one and removing each instrument until the lights faded out and only the bassist, Chris Baio, remained. 

But tradition demanded an encore, and Vampire Weekend was back on stage in under five minutes. It was then time for “Anything But Vampire Weekend Requests,” according to Koenig — a spin on the band’s tradition of taking requests from audience members for Vampire Weekend songs not on the setlist. 

In quick succession, the band played bits and bobs of “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Astley, “Beast of Burden” by The Rolling Stones, “Twist and Shout” by The Beatles, “A Message to You Rudy” by The Specials, “Peg” by Steely Dan, “The Boys Are Back in Town” by Thin Lizzy and, finally, “Mr. Brightside” by The Killers. 

Once the cover band portion of the show had concluded — and audience demands for anything by the band Chicago weren’t met — the concert concluded with rip-roaring “Walcott.”