You know the age old story. Band garners success, "sells out," goes "mainstream," collects a following of teenage worshippers from MTV, loses credibility, and throws creativity out the window, etc. Well, we say screw that. Those dinosaur-aged ideas have long expired. Case and point, Vampire Weekend. It's always delightful when a hugely hyped band not only meets, but exceeds our expectations. Not really expecting much more than what Contra offers, we weren't looking for musical genius, but boy did we get some.

The lighting was spot on. Little effects like hanging chandeliers and the backdrop of the album cover where the lovely lady's eyes would glow red (read: vampire, oooh clever), etc. Yes, the songs did sound a bit different live, some faster in tempo, some super broken down, but strangely enough, they were better than the album versions. But what was most shocking was Ezra's voice. He carried every single tune to perfection, and the group was so tightly knit, even broken strings and rowdy fans couldn't break their rhythm. We came with a skeptical perception, and let's just say we were very pleasantly surprised by the results.