#80 Vampire Weekend

We were listening to Oxford Comma and A-Punk, imagining ourselves drinking Daïquiris and doing pogos on a huge beach, barefoot in the sand, imagining we were teenagers, shaking our heads and smiling stupidly.

It couldn’t have been worst in Paris that day. A gray November afternoon, at La Chapelle. Gray sidewalks, wastelands, railroads, public telephones. Paris wasn’t exotic that day, it was not Montmartre on a spring Sunday, it was the opposite of Daïquiris. The guys wore student sweaters, Ezra had his scarf on and they were responsible for the sun, their mission was to put some colour in the Northern area of Paris. What a burden.

The whole thing hung on a single rhythm, a voice, the incongruity of the equipment. Two keyboards, held single-handedly, because the guys had to carry them while playing, and then put them on the ground. An amazing drummer, deprived of his drums, who ended in a desert backyard, hitting cheerfully on yellow and green trash cans. Above all, a voice: Ezra’s, young and strong. It impressed us first when we were above the railroads at Gare du Nord, then in a little café, back to the roots.

They started playing Walcott as we’ve never heard it: this song, which usually relies on a piano riff, here rested upon a delicate guitar arpeggio. They walked, then we enter the Delis’. Wainscot panelling on the walls, very kind owners who agreed to lower the sound of the radio, synthetizers on tables, next to beers, customers, some were indifferent, some joined the chorus on Blake’s got a new face. Similarities with the very first video we shot. It was Spinto Band, another freewheeling pop band.