The luxury of Vampire Weekend at Vodafone Paredes de Coura: a midsummer night's dream

Approaching their 20th anniversary (what do you mean, already?!), New York band Vampire Weekend performed their ninth concert in Portugal on the opening night of Vodafone Paredes de Coura. They were the most anticipated band of the day and lived up to their status with a rich and musically multifaceted show, delivered by a large band capable of catering to all tastes, from afrobeat to slick pop. Perhaps there was a lack of entertainment.

Sometimes it seems like yesterday. In 2008, four New York boys, too attuned to the wilds of rock and roll, fresh out of Columbia University, burst onto the scene with a personalized blend of indie rock, Afropop, and chamber pop—some with a hint of Talking Heads, others of ska, the guitar—by Ezra Koenig—played almost at chest level, a whole school of recycled art pop ready to serve the then-still-bubbling indie nation. The name, Vampire Weekend, is the same as the title of their first album, still the group's best and freshest, or else it would not have contained the two most celebrated moments of the concert they gave, 17 years later, in Paredes de Coura—the ninth in the group's Portuguese history.