Vampire Weekend Backlash at SXSW

Or so I had assumed. Knowing that I only had two chances to see the band perform (a chance to see The Black Keys, The Little Ones, The Helio Sequence and British Sea Power perform elsewhere during Vampire Weekend's third show, held at Friday's Spin day-party, was too much to give up), I walked down to Sixth Street on Thursday afternoon to see if the lines weren't too bad for its first SXSW show, an NPR-broadcasted day performance. The lines were that bad, though, stretching a whole block past the door of the venue where the band was playing.

Her tune changed, though, after she looked at the three cards I had picked at random from her fanned tarot deck. There was the King of Pentacles card: "He's wealthy," Lee said. "He has money. That means it's probably worth your while to go."

Then came the Justice card. "This means they [Vampire Weekend] are not a negative influence," Lee explained. "It's definitely going to be a good show. Look forward to it."

The last card showed a man named the King of Wands. "He looks into the future," Lee said. "He looks at his wand with the goal that he has something to look forward to."

Fine. But what did it all mean? "It'll definitely bring you to a higher class of prominent people," she said. And if I don't go? "You'll miss the people; you'll miss a good time. Maybe not the show, but the people."

At the time, it seemed a prescient insight, or at least enough to convince me to check out the band's official show.

In actuality, Lee's prophecy was pretty far off. The entire experience of seeing Vampire Weekend's Friday night gig at Antone's, Austin's famed blues bar, was pretty dreadful: The lines to get in were insufferably long, even if you had an elusive badge or wristband at your disposal; the people inside were disgustingly supportive of Vampire Weekend in that "I've known about them forever" sort of way (in which—and they would even admit this when I asked them—"forever" translated to "since last month"); and the bands on the bill before Vampire Weekend offered, for the most part, incredibly underwhelming performances.

(That last issue was a running theme throughout the festival, by the way. You'd think that being given the chance to open for a band like Vampire Weekend at SXSW would be an amazing get; festival-goers are smart enough to know to get to these big buzz shows early, and if your band is opening for a Vampire Weekend-like act, you're bound to be the benefactor of a large, influential crowd. But both Los Angeles' Foreign Born, which got the coveted pre-Vampire Weekend slot, and New Hampshire's Wild Light, which opened for another big buzz band, the psychedelic MGMT, were especially dreadful. These bands were either really mediocre and just lucky to make the festival or they were flat-out terrified at the opportunity of catching some of the other bands' overflowing buzz.)

Vampire Weekend's actual set, meanwhile, was...well, actually it was pretty good. Performing to a mostly easy crowd of already-won-over fans, the band performed its set engulfed in the glow of their own hype (or was it just the orange house lights?). The crowd bounced along happily and cheerily to the songs (Afro-beat and Jamaican-inspired drums tend to have that effect on people), and the band members reciprocated, jaunting through each track on their 34.5-minute debut. It was a cheery, smile-filled set. It was cute. And fun.

But it just wasn't as remarkable as the Vampire Weekend-loving crowd exiting the venue made it out to be:

"That was amazing!"

"Totally worth the wait!"

"Oh! My! God!"

Still, you can't blame them for wishing it was that good. Part of being a concert-attending music fan, at least for people who attend shows like this one, is the hope of catching something that will be talked about for years. Given the buzz on Vampire Weekend heading into this particular show, it did seem like this set had such potential.

Unfortunately for those fans, although it was a good show, it just wasn't that good. If this performance is to be remembered for something years from now, it will be for the hype surrounding it.