(Disclaimer: this is poorly written.)

Vampire Weekend’s appearance at the VFW Hall in Lomita was the last night of their All California Tour. Not sure why, but they were appearing at a variety of interesting locations, the most interesting of which was this one… a veteran’s affairs hall, complete with bingo charts up on the walls and 70’s decor. The stage itself looked like the cover of The National’s Boxer, to give you a general idea of the vibe.

(As a little side note, I don’t know who the opening act was [it wasn't Avi Buffalo, I am pretty sure] but they were god awful. They looked like a nice bunch of extremely homosexual chaps [and one lady] but the sound that came out of their synthesizers and, to much more horrible degree, their vocalist was ear splitting, headache inducing, and aside from the verses in one song, completely unlistenable.)

The crowd was more obnoxious than usual, being that it was composed evenly of hipsters from every age range (from the 50’s into the tweens)—who hardly moved around at all except to cheer when they started to play A-Punk or to shout “Walcott!!” like a bunch of douchers—complete with this Asian woman who kept posing over and over again for her smitten white guy boyfriend—and only ever in the typical ‘throw your arms in the air and cock your head to the side’ woo-girl pose, lacking only the stupid cowboy hat—before the show, and then during the show started screaming at her companion as loud as possible, and at one point was making indescribable wailing sounds somewhat in time with the music (after the song she shouted, “SORRY I DIDN’T KNOW YOU COULD HEAR ME” at her guy, though everyone in the whole place could hear her). I can’t really fault a girl for being drunk (and I’m merely assuming she’s drunk to give her the benefit of doubt), and I really can’t fault her for being stupid (woo-girls are bred to be stupid, you see, it is in their genes it is) but I can fault her boyfriend for not telling her to shut the fuck up. If you’re that guy and you’re reading this: Fuck you, as the guy who brought her you have the responsibility of telling her to be quiet and risk not getting laid for the benefit of all of us.

I’ll cut this really short because there isn’t much to say…

Vampire Weekend live is no different then Vampire Weekend on the album. I knew this before, because I saw them play a couple songs for Kimmey Jimmel [sic] back when A-Punk was being played everywhere, all the time, on everything, and they were impeccably clean musicians who play their songs exactly as they sound on the record. There’s nothing special or exciting—unless you find that your stereo won’t play their album loud enough and you want to hear it blasted at you at high volumes from 30-40 feet away. Ezra Koenig tries really hard to be cute or clever up on stage between songs but mostly he just comes across as slightly douchey—which you can’t fault him for that because, well, Vampire Weekend is kind of douchey music.

As far as what the new material from Contra was like, none of it was as catchy as any of the stuff off their self-titled. I don’t want to get too ahead of myself, since I haven’t sat down and listened to the album over and over again until I love all of it just by default, but my prediction for Contra is… sophomore slump. Horchata, which becomes mostly just annoying by the third time you hear Ezra croon “I looked psychotic in a balaclava” (if anyone said that to my face I would probably spit on them), is probably the catchiest Contra song they played. The rest I couldn’t remember even if I tried really hard.

Overall the show left me underwhelmed, but not disappointed. I knew what to expect (Vampire Weekend playing Vampire Weekend songs) and perhaps it’s a symptom of my fandom—which is based on the fact that their first album is magnificent for the most part and probably absolutely impossible to live up to. By the sound of what I heard in Lomita on Saturday night my assumption here is correct… Contra isn’t going to be very good, but if you like it I’m sure you’ll enjoy Vampire Weekend’s live shows. Just don’t expect anything special from them.

Part of me wonders how you don’t get bored playing the exact same songs the exact same ways for over two years. From the look on the synth/keyboard player’s face—which was dull and emotionless for the whole set in the same way a stroke victims face is—I’d say they’re pretty bored. I was pretty bored, too.