This Saturday night, Vampire Weekend headlined the third night of Chicago’s iconic Lollapalooza Festival and shared with the crowd that the fourth new album is complete and just getting its final touches.
VW also previewed four new songs off the upcoming album, which is, for now, being called “LP4,” via frontman Ezra Koenig’s aux cord, at a no-phones after-show last night (Aug. 5) in Chicago club Metro. The band (reportedly) played an incredible set list – complete with hits, rarities, and covers – like Thin Lizzy’s “The Boys Are Back in Town.” After the main set and before the encore, Koenig apparently sat atop a speaker and played four new songs off his phone and watched the crowd’s reactions.
On one hand – mad respect to the fans for actually respecting the no-phones rule. On the other hand… there’s no video of this mythical performance. And we’re sad about that. But it sounds like the album is dropping any day now and we can’t wait to hear it!
Here’s a clip of @arzE announcing that LP4 is done (tonight at Lollapalooza) pic.twitter.com/dl3GjupjJD
— Team Vampire Weekend (@teamvampyweeks) August 5, 2018
As the first album from the group since co-founder Rostam Batmanglij’s 2016 departure, there’s been no shortage of speculation from fans about what a record from VW sounds like sans the founding multi-instrumentalist and lyricist. But, it seems the album is going to be as enjoyable as ever, with one after-show crowd member later recalling on Reddit that the new stuff was “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… then big dense flashes of instrumentation with heavy percussion and a slick almost sexy taste of 70s funk licks.” The fan then added a prediction we’re in total agreement with, guessing that “LP4” is “going to be an interesting record.”
Photo Credit: Getty Images
