It’s the second week in a row grinding my way up to Place Bell for a show in Montreal’s rush-hour traffic, just so I can catch the opener on the bill. They’d have to be good to warrant that kind of effort! Thankfully, they are—it’s the return of New York’s Cults and my first time seeing them in over 13 years. How time flies!
Frontwoman Madeline Follin arrives on stage in a hot pink, Bardot-esque furry dress and launches straight into new songs: Crybaby, Left My Keys, and Onions, all from this year’s To The Ghosts record. Go Outside, their breakthrough single from their self-titled debut, still sounds as fresh as it did back in 2011 when I first saw them at Il Motore (now Bar Le Ritz), complete with the plinky glockenspiel. This is a stark contrast to the heavier electro and deep bass of Eat It Cold, which immediately follows, as well as Gilded Lily, which arrives a few songs later.
Madeline praises those who braved the Montreal rush-hour traffic to be there for their 7:10 p.m. start: “Thank you so much for being here early for us!” The delicate Always Forever is a perfect conclusion to a blissful 40 minutes, its church organ effects ending the set triumphantly.
Cults Setlist
Crybaby
Left My Keys
Onions
Monolithic
Go Outside
Eat It Cold
Bad Things
You Know What I Mean
Gilded Lily
Hung the Moon
Always Forever
I didn’t realize how many times I’ve seen Vampire Weekend over the years until I was digging through my old planners out of curiosity. Tonight is my fifth time, and my first in over five years since their incredible show at MTelus last time out. Tonight is unquestionably their biggest headline show here yet. In complete contrast to the grandiose room in which they find themselves, they start on a reduced-size stage with just frontman Ezra Koenig, bassist Chris Baio, and drummer Chris Tomson, in front of a huge curtain with “VAMPIRE WEEKEND” in block capitals.
They kick things off in a lo-fi manner reminiscent of their seminal 2008 self-titled album. The gentle beats of Campus give way to the chaos of Boston (Ladies of Cambridge), and the even more chaotic One (Blake’s Got a New Face), the crowd more than happy to follow Ezra’s request to “chantez avec moi!!!”
New song Ice Cream Piano, which opens their latest record Only God Was Above Us, starts with just Ezra and his guitar, with the two Chrises having disappeared behind the giant curtain at this point. However, it promptly drops as the song bursts into life, revealing the full stage setup, which includes what looks like an enormous cave at the back of the stage and four additional touring musicians. Chris Baio throws shapes on Classical, alternating punches with his shoulders, though a roadie in a high-vis vest dancing on the podium at the entrance to the cave takes it up another level entirely. A few songs later, another roadie in a high-vis vest busts out the violin part of Sympathy—they’re certainly more involved than your average stagehand! White Sky is another monstrous team effort, with the seven musicians on stage, including two drummers, two pianos, and a whole lot of Caribbean flavouring.
A change of backdrop to the face of a guy in 3D glasses leads to a change of pace, and things mellow out for a few songs. The aforementioned Sympathy melts into dim red light, and the pummelling drums of New Dorp. New York stir into life. With Ezra grabbing a saxophone at the breakdown, it has an undeniably more jazz-club vibe than on record! The Surfer is another moody churner before the lullaby of Unbearably White, which is greeted with a sea of cellphone lights.
As if to signal the end of the moody, chill segment of the show, the 3D-guy curtain drops to reveal the cave once more, and the pace picks back up with the old-school Oxford Comma, eliciting a sea of bouncing hands. This continues with a thunderous run of Diane Young, Cousins, and then A-Punk, really making Place Bell lose their minds.
After a wonderful Harmony Hall, the main set closes with the magical Hope, my current obsession from that new record, as good as anything they’ve ever written. The seven-minute epic winds down with one member leaving the stage at a time, disappearing into the cave, until just Ezra and Chris are jamming face-to-face on the podium. Soon enough, Ezra exits too, leaving just Chris to play the bassline gradually slower to a stop as a mirror ball fires out light beams around the room from the back of the stage. It’s jaw-droppingly spectacular.
After a quick break, the band returns for the encore, and Ezra declares, “The last tour, we took only Vampire Weekend requests for the encore. This time we’ll take anything BUT Vampire Weekend!” Various paper signs pop up around the floor with random songs on them, showing that plenty had done their homework before coming to the show. It’s mostly improv 45–60 second snippets of songs, almost always followed by an apology to the author in question. We get brief covers of Squeeze, Oasis, Leonard Cohen (“I figured we might get some Leonard Cohen!” says Ezra), Pixies, System of a Down, Nickelback, Thin Lizzy, Elton John, Talking Heads, and two slices of Shania Town, to varying degrees of success.
It’s a lot of fun, but as if knowing they can’t end things that way, Ezra asks, “Do you want one more Vampire Weekend song?” Of course, the answer is yes, and we get a triumphant Walcott to close out a phenomenal evening after two and a half hours. Ezra had commented mid-set, “Merci beaucoup, Montreal… not bad for a Wednesday night, huh?!”
Not bad at all, Ezra. Not bad at all.
Vampire Weekend Setlist
- Campus
- Boston (Ladies of Cambridge)
- One (Blake’s Got a New Face)
- Ice Cream Piano
- Classical
- Connect
- White Sky
- Step
- This Life
- Sympathy
- New Dorp. New York (SBTRKT cover)
- The Surfer
- Unbearably White
- Oxford Comma
- Capricorn
- Gen-X Cops
- Diane Young
- Cousins
- A-Punk
- Prep-School Gangsters
- Mary Boone
- Obvious Bicycle
- Harmony Hall
- Hope
Encore - Tempted (Squeeze cover)
- Don’t Look Back in Anger (Oasis cover)
- So Long, Marianne (Leonard Cohen cover)
- Here Comes Your Man (Pixies cover)
- Chop Suey! (System of a Down cover)
- How You Remind Me (Nickelback cover)
- Dangerous Night (The Night Is a Knife)
- The Boys Are Back in Town (Thin Lizzy cover)
- Man! I Feel Like a Woman! (Shania Twain cover)
- You’re Still the One (Shania Twain cover)
- I’m Still Standing (Elton John cover)
- This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody) (Talking Heads cover)
- Walcott
Review & Cults photo – Simon Williams
Vampire Weekend Photos – Eric Brisson
