Vampire Weekend, dubbed "prep rock" by the music industry because of their Ivy League origins, took the stage Wednesday night at the Rock and Roll Hotel donning oxford shirts and cardigans. The preppiest music lovers in the place had to be the band itself, as the audience on the whole was less madras plaid, more camp plaid, as far as stylistic classifications go.
Though nominally Vampire Weekend's target audience may be the Ralph Lauren crowd, lead singer Ezra Koening probably better identified concertgoers when introducing the band's newest, as of yet unnamed, song midway through their set.
"This one doesn't have a name yet," he said. "You can tell us your ideas later, if you think of something, you know, hipster."
The band's hipster appeal probably comes from the unique blend of styles that the band has identified as "Upper West Side Soweto," calling to mind the affluent, artistic Upper West Side neighborhood of Manhattan and the apartheid-torn Soweto district of Johannesburg, South Africa.
This classification is probably the simplest way to articulate just what you'll get at a Vampire Weekend show. Strong Afrobeat influences pervade their songs, but with the upper-crust polish you would expect from a band started at Columbia University.
The foursome opened with "Mansard Roof," a reference to a neo-Baroque architectural feature. The lighthearted intellectual references in the song were nearly eclipsed by the thumping drums that drove their entire set.
By the third song, fan-favorite "Oxford Comma," the boat shoes had come off, literally and figuratively. Koening traversed the stage in stocking feet, and the band challenged the audience to keep up with their peppy songs.
"If the spirit moves you," Koening said before playing the band's first single, "A-Punk," "maybe you could dance along to this next one. We like to, sometimes."
Their playful pop culture allusions won the audience over. You could see smiles creeping across faces as bassist Chris Baio turned to drummer Chris Tomson and thumped his fist on his chest. Tomson responded, playing harder and louder than before, truly creating the heartbeat for the crowd that Baio had indicated. The audience bopped along to a song primarily about covering up a murder.
The band played their entire eponymous debut album, plus one new song. Their encore, predictably, was the only song of their repertoire that they had not played, "Walcott." Koening ecstatically thanked the audience for their enthusiasm as they finished up.
"Thank you, District of Columbia! You've been wonderful!" he yelled. Before they left the stage, though, D.C. native keyboardist Rostam Batmanglij, whose extended family populated a portion of the crowd, corrected him.
"I know you're not from around here, so you don't know the etiquette, but you've got to thank the whole tri-state area. So thank you, Maryland, D.C. and Virginia! You've been great."
The crowd cheered, Vampire Weekend waved and took their boat shoes and cardigans backstage.
