After my hip hop fix for the day was taken care of with Dizzee Rascal, I trekked on over to the Aluminum stage to wait amongst the masses for the highly anticipated Vampire Weekend set. I’m still puzzled why they had this huge hyped buzz band take the stage at 5:00 vs. closing out for the night, but it was pretty great to see these dudes rock it in the sunlight. I tried to fight for a spot with the photo hounds in the barrack pit at the beginning of the set, but I swear these Columbia prep-rock sweethearts are the Brangelina of the indie rock world, with the photogs getting all TMZ and paparazzo up there.

I managed to squeak a couple pics with my ghetto Kodak hand cam, but once I backed up and relaxed, the sweet, upbeat tracks from Vampire Weekend soaked up the hot and sunny park like a cool glass of lemonade. Several faves from the self titled debut album were accounted for including the opener “Mansard Roof,” “A-Punk,” “Campus,” “M79,” “Oxford Comma,” and my personal fave “I Stand Corrected” amongst many others.

The boys seemed to nail down the sharp prep sound to the condensed crowd, who ate up the dizzy arraignment of keys, guitars and African infused beats. VW’s set was a highlight of the day for sure. It was hard to believe that this was the same group who rocked the small set of Schuba’s Tavern a mere seven months ago.