Vampire Weekend performed a surprise set in Los Angeles last night, with the band taking on Bob Dylan‘s 1983 track ‘Jokerman’. Check out footage below.
The New Yorkers, who recently joined the line-up for 2019’s Open’er Festival, performed an intimate gig after frontman Ezra Koenig was interviewed for LA’s GQ Live.
During the show, Koenig continued his recent fascination with ‘Jokerman’ – having used it as the title for the latest episode of his Apple Music show, Time Crisis.
The December 2 edition saw the frontman interview the creator of the ’90s Jokerman font, Andrew Smith. He had also shared Instagram stories of the font, while asking his followers to send their own photos.
Elsewhere at the private gig, the trio performed ‘Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa’ from their 2008 debut, along with a cover of Honeycombs’ ‘Have I The Right’.
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In other news, it was recently revealed that a new song from Ezra Koenig features in the Neo Yokio Christmas special. The musician sings in the track: “I never had a friend like you/I don’t think I’ll ever find another.”
Meanwhile, Vampire Weekend are set to release their new record, which has the working title ‘Mitsubishi Macchiato’, in 2019. After the band headlined Chicago’s Lollapalooza in August, Koenig treated fans to previews of some of its tracks, playing the material from his phone at an afterparty.
Describing what they heard, one fan told Reddit: “The sound is a more spacey and empty sounding record, almost reminiscent of [Fleet Foxes’] ‘Crack Up’ in parts, but VERY bright and sunny – a summertime sound with almost a protest song sound vibe to them (no political lyrics I heard or anything like that), and then big dense flashes of instrumentation with heavy percussion and a slick, almost sexy taste of ’70s funk licks. Going to be an interesting record.”