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Vampire Weekend At The Fox In Oakland

Vampire Weekend
Vampire Weekend at the Fox Theatre (credit: Vanessa Gil/CBS SF)

OAKLAND (CBS SF/LIVE 105) - The tweens filled up the floor space in front of the stage at Fox Theater on Wednesday night, while the older crowd, myself included, filled in the rest of the venue for Vampire Weekend. It's difficult to not be self-conscious in a crowd of teeny-boppers, but the band's danceable music (and a couple beers) makes it easy to throw caution to the wind and dance right along with the rest of them for an hour straight.

Vampire Weekend made their way on stage and opened up with "Holiday" off their Contra album. The crowd started bopping up and down dancing and didn't stop throughout Vampire Weekend's hour set that included songs like "Cape Code Kwassa Kwassa" and one of my personal favorites, "I Stand Corrected."

The background for the headliner was minimal at first. Columns hanging on the wall, a mirror that doubled as a screen with a chandelier (a familiar image from their self-titled debut album) occasionally making an appearance. That is until "Giving Up the Gun" was performed and the wall seemed to explode into a floral wallpaper that livened up the set.

Lead singer, Ezra Koenig, finally addressed the crowd and expressed his love for the Bay Area and his appreciation for our love and acceptance of the band. He followed up the message with a song off their new album Modern Vampires in the City called "Step." The songs included a shout-out to the Bay with the lyrics, "…disco tapes from L.A. slash San Francisco, but actually Oakland and not Alameda. Your girl was in Berkeley with her communist reader." The crowd went crazy.

Their encore consisted of an amazing light show during "Diplomat's Son" and "Mansard Roof" while finally closing up with night with "Walcott." (A song which poses the question from the New Yorkers, "Walcott, don't you wanna get out of Cape Cod tonight?")

Until next time, thank you Vampire Weekend for the opportunity to forget my age and embrace my inner tween.


 
Vampire Weekend at the Fox Set-list:

White Sky
Holiday
Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa
I Stand Corrected
M79
Bryn
California English
Cousins
Taxi Cab
Run
A-Punk
One (Blake's Got a New Face)
Diplomat's Son
Giving Up the Gun
Campus
Oxford Comma

Encore:
Horchata
Mansard Roof
Walcott

(Copyright 2013 by CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

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