Watch Vampire Weekend Play Surprise Show For HQ Trivia Host
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Vampire Weekend have been hard at work on the follow-up to 2013’s Modern Vampires Of The City, their first album since Rostam Batmanglij left the band, for a while now. Late last year, frontman Ezra Koenig revealed that the album (working title: Mitsubishi Macchiato) was inspired in part by Kacey Musgraves, and they worked on it with Haim producer Ariel Rechtshaid. But we haven’t heard much about it since then, and Vampire Weekend weren’t scheduled to perform live until a set at the UK’s End Of The Road Festival this summer, which was going to be their first show in four years apart from a couple of brief performances at Bernie Sanders rallies in 2016.
That all changed unexpectedly on Monday, as Pitchfork reports, when Vampire Weekend made a surprise return to the stage. Along with Nick Kroll and Sarah Silverman, Ezra Koenig was set to be one of the guests on Running Late, the live show hosted by HQ Trivia app host Scott Rogowsky, at the Largo Theater in Los Angeles. But the whole band ended up showing up, and they ended up performing, too.
According to a Redditor who was there, they performed Modern Vampires Of The City cut “Unbelievers” and “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa,” a track from their self-title 2008 debut, which segued into a cover of “Here Comes The Sun.” They also reportedly had a new live lineup featuring three new members alongside Ezra Koenig, Chris Baio, and Chris Tomson: one on percussion, one on keys, and one on lead guitar. There’s not much footage available online, at least that I can see. But there is one video of them doing “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” and a few photos, and you can check those out below.
Surprise performance from @vampireweekend (new lineup!) with @runninglateshow guest @arzE at @LargoLosAngeles on Monday night! pic.twitter.com/vodRmctZ1q
— Stephanie Port (@stephportphotos) April 25, 2018
