San Francisco Music News

I'm generally pretty skeptical when I hear about "buzzbands" that pop out of nowhere made famous by various blogs. I wasn't sure what to expect about Vampire Weekend's live performance on a school night, but I figured I'd hop in my car and check out their show. When I arrived at the Rickshaw Stop on Fell, there was already a decent line outside and I thought, "Not bad for a Sunday night." However, when I got inside, the place was packed and was hot and humid like a steam room.

I missed the opening band, but there seemed to be a decent wait for the band. It was great to see so many people at an all-ages show on a Sunday night. I heard that some people drove from Tahoe and Santa Cruz to see these guys play.

Vampire Weekend started off by playing in various house parties and was eventually covered by StereoGum. More recently MTV did a nice post on them as well. The four-piece band apparently met when they were at Columbia University and have taken off having recently played on Letterman and SNL.

When the band hit the stage, the crowd went wild. Frontman and guitarist, Ezra Koenig, stepped out with a yellow hollowbody guitar that looked like George Benson's Ibanez model, but I couldn't tell. (Sorry, the guitar geek in me couldn't help itself.) They have a truly unique sound mixing African Pop with punk/ska. If I had to describe them, they sort of sound like Johnny Clegg and Savuka meets the Arctic Monkeys meets the Clash meets the English Beat. Their music is light and fun with a bright mix of clean guitar riffs, keyboard samples of strings, and a thumping low-end of complicated bass lines all over a combination of afro-cuban and punk beats. I haven't heard such a different and fresh sound in a while. The band played a fairly short set probably because they ran out of material, but it certainly left me wanting more. They have signed a licensing deal with XL Recordings and are currently on tour throughout the US.