Vampire Weekend last played Asheville in 2010 at the 1,000-capacity Orange Peel, which even then felt like an intimate venue for the then indie buzz band. Monday night’s Asheville tour stop was long awaited, as the band’s two most recent stops were canceled/delayed by calamity (COVID in 2020, Hurricane Helene in 2024). The clouds and rain that were present throughout the show showed no signs of quenching the thirst of a local audience who had been waiting for this show for nearly as long as the band now takes between album releases.
The band returned to Asheville looking very different from the cardigan-clad quartet who was just a couple years out of Columbia University when they last visited Asheville. The 2025 edition of VW is much looser, less self-aware, and musically more expansive than the younger version that adorably hopped around on the Peel stage a decade and a half ago. The current band’s addition of an extra guitarist and drummer, as well as a violinist/extra keyboardist for good measure, doubled the original incarnation in size (and skill) on the much larger Asheville Yards stage. They’ve evolved from musically inclined college grads to something far more interesting: a motley crew of genre nonconformists who have somehow become an increasingly noteworthy live curiosity that dabbles hard in jam band sensibilities.
The band’s psychedelic sound collages, rotating setlists, and oddball covers have drawn praise from the jam scene, and their playful nods to the culture—like lead singer Ezra Koenig’s fascination with Twiddle’s “Jamflowman” or drummer Chris “CT” Tomson’s sweetly displaying a Phish shirt during the goodnights of the band’s inaugural SNL performance—have only deepened the members’ connection to the jam scene. They’ve rubbed shoulders with fellow phans at Phish’s intimate show at the Met in 2019, and invited the band’s bass player and most acclaimed weirdo Mike Gordon to open a run of shows last year. They’ve even joined Goose on stage for a 30-minute jam on the band’s foundational groove track “Cap Cod Kwassa Kwassa”, repaying the perennial jam band for covering their song “2021” for a special release. The idea of an early-2000s band of mp3 era darlings being embraced by the Steal Your Face tie-dyed faithful is one that somehow makes sense, as the band demonstrated throughout their show in a town known for blurring the lines between hipster and hippie.
The Asheville show opened up with the stripped-down trio of original members Ezra, CT, and Chris—just call him“Baio”—Baio on bass, pounding through already raw-enough-as-is-it-is early jams “Cousins”, “I Stand Corrected”, and “One (Blake’s Got A New Face)”. The banner that covered the stage behind the band dropped as Ezra began “Ice Cream Piano”, revealing the full band by the song’s soaring chorus. “Classical” and “Connect” continued the new album spotlight, faithfully sprinkling the band’s studio fairy dust on the intricate live takes.
Vampire Weekend’s catalog has a natural divide between its first three albums and the most recent two, but Monday’s setlist honored both eras. “White Sky”, “M79”, and “Step” from the now old school VW catalog were brought to life with the additional touring band members Will Canzoneri (keys/piano), Ray Suen (violin and keys), Garret Ray (percussion/second drums), and Brian Robert Jones (guitar and saxophone). Each musician added new sonic planets to the already rich Vampire Weekend musical universe, notably on the run of newer songs—“This Life”, “Sunflower”, and “Sympathy”—which all benefited from some saxophone and violin embellishments
“The Surfer”, “Capricorn”, and “Gen X-Cops” offered another new album mini-suite before familiar favorites “Diane Young”, “A Punk”, and “Oxford Comma” got the crowd to dance themselves dry. Ezra and crew fleshed out the remainder of the main set with newer songs “Mary Boone”, “Harmony Hall”, and “Hope”, allowing the band to allot a full half hour to what is arguably the most entertaining portion of the two-and-a-half-hour show: the encore game of We’ll Play Any Song You Shout Out (As Long As It’s Not By Vampire Weekend).
The entertaining gimmick of musical Russian roulette had the band dodging audience requests from diverse eras and genres. Ezra’s playful banter gave the encore the laid-back feel of drunk friends arguing over what song to do at karaoke night. The band navigated the complex chord changes and quirky tempos of “Born To Run”, “Roxanne”, and the Jacksons’ jam “I Want You Back”. The aging alt-rock crowd members among the audience got their share of relics from mainstream ’90s radio with Weezer’s “Say It Ain’t So”, Dave Matthews and Co.’s “Ants Marching”, and Alanis Morissette’s “Ironic”. Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” got the Vampire treatment alongside “I Can See Clearly Now”, which seemed like a not entirely true assessment that the rain was gone and the blue skies had arrived. Simon and Garfunkel serenade “The Only Boy Living In New York” showed the band’s (and their fans’) knowledge of the deep tracks. The band said goodnight with a raging “Walcott” to end the show, bringing the evening, and setlist journey, to a beautiful climax.
In a town where hipster meets hippie, Vampire Weekend found its perfect audience—and in return, delivered a set that turned a rainy Monday into a genre-bending celebration.
Vampire Weekend – “Cousins” – 6/9/25
[Video: Kate]