GALLERY: Vampire Weekend Bring Only God Was Above Us to Saratoga
6/4 @ Saratoga Performing Arts Center
Photos by Elissa Ebersold
Rock band Vampire Weekend took over the SPAC amphitheater on Wednesday, June 4th, bringing their Only God Was Above Us tour to the Capital Region. The weather was hot, albeit dry, and people trickled in during opening artist Geese’s set until the stadium was full of anxious fans.
Vampire Weekend opened their set with three core members—frontman Ezra Koenig, Chris Tomson on drums, and Chris Baio on bass guitar—all dressed in white and khaki, standing in front of a stage-sized banner with “VAMPIRE WEEKEND” in large block letters. A few songs in, the banner fell from the scaffolding, revealing the rest of the touring ensemble—and the large tunnel set—behind it. Every musician had a uniform—the white shirt with khaki pants—and their large cast of characters included a second drummer, a violist, pianist, saxophone player & guitarist, and yet another guitarist. They also had a few more moving pieces that fit into the tunnel theme. They used flood lights as part of their light production, and crew members moving about wearing yellow HiVis vests with “VW Tunnel Crew” emblazoned on the back. One of these crew members made the audience laugh and cheer by doing a strip tease, working off his vest to show off his khaki pants and white t-shirt.
Vampire Weekend played a massive 22 song set, plus another significant chunk of time on their unorthodox encore. Their encore is different every night, and consists of taking requests from the audience, attempting to parse together the songs through their musicianship. Some songs they played (or tried to) were Green Day’s “Basket Case,” “Teenage Dirtbag” by Wheatus, “Sir Duke” by Stevie Wonder, “Stand by Me” by Bill Withers, “Summertime Sadness” by Lana Del Rey, and other hits. They concluded their encore and evening with their original song, “Walcott.”
