On the 29th of November I attended Vampire Weekend at the 3Arena in Dublin.
Vampire weekend, a monument in the early 2010s indie scene, with hits like A-punk and Campus, and hit albums like Contra and Father of the Bride played a large yet somehow intimate feeling show in the 3arena
The band started as a 3 piece on stage in-front of a giant banner covering the entire behind of the stage with the bands name on it, just bass guitar and drums, all the while you could hear other instruments being played in the background, eventually a few songs in the banner fell and revealed the full band and then the show really kicked off.
This tour was in support of their new album “Only God was Above us”, with a large amount of that album represented on the set list. Some standouts of the set include the wonderfully written “Harmony Hall” and the absolutely flooring live version of “Capricorn” that blows you away with its harshness yet beauty live, and of course the ever energetic “A-Punk”, which had the crowd lifted off their feet and even saw most of the seated section standing.
The highlight of the show, though, was at the encore when the band came out and took requests of literally anything, the crowd scrambled to put their phones up with an artist or song written on their screen. The crowd was treated with such hits as the sing along Van Morrison classic “Brown-eyed Girl” and the upbeat track “Hotel Yorba” by the White Stripes, and of course the beautiful but all too short rendition of “Fairytale of New York”, arguably the greatest Christmas song ever written.
Overall it was a great night out, with a wonderful and kind crowd, I had great chats outside with some random man I have never met about the depth of some of their lyrics, and how this show compared to other they have done. Something should also be said about the support act, Ye Vagabonds, who delivered a very somber and emotional support set for the show.
Stage Setup: 8/10, very well set up especially with the backdrops dropping and changing, great light work as-well.
Band performance: 10/10, one of the tightest and most Insync bands I have ever seen, their ability to play full rendition of random requests is unreal.
Support: 7/10, a good addition to the gig but not a band I would see myself getting into.
Merchandise: 7/10, decent selection of merch, personally bought a grey tour long sleeve, designs not anything spectacular but surprisingly reasonable priced merch (which isn’t saying a lot considering the price of merch these days).
Crowd: 8/10, very active and very kind crowd, got talking to many people during and after the show who were all delightful, although the crowd wasn’t as great during the new album material as most of them weren’t there for that.
Overall: 8/10, a very good concert by a band I would absolutely consider seeing again, in a way that feels very hard to describe, it was the most “concert” concert I have been to in a while.
Next up: The Frank and Walters, Whelans, 14/12/24
Jays Concert Blog 