Review: Vampire Weekend confidently but kookily kicks off two-night stand in Minneapolis

The more Vampire Weekend gets serious about being an innovative and expansive band on record, the more it seems to enjoy goofing off in concert.

Tuesday’s sold-out performance at the Armory — the group’s second time packing the Minneapolis venue, and first of two nights there this time around — could be best summed up by the one adjective that made Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz famous this past week: weird. As in: don’t-let-the-TSA-inspect-the-dudes’-luggage weird.

When the poppy and preppy New Yorkers weren’t busy being silly, though, they made a good case for being one of rock’s most consistently evolving, clever and entertaining bands of the 21st century.

It seemed impossible Vampire Weekend could top the fun of its last Armory show in 2019. That was the one where actress Emma Stone danced off to the side of the stage, and Minnesota State Fair cookie maven “Sweet” Martha Rossini Olson danced onstage after the band sold T-shirts with her logo on them to raise money for St. Paul libraries.

The fun this time included a game show segment where the group brought up an audience member to compete in a cornhole toss (she took home a $500 parting gift). Then the encore was overtaken by a “Name That Tune”-like contest where the band tried to play whatever songs the crowd shouted out at them. Everything from “Tainted Love” and “Say It Ain’t So” to “Roxanne” was attempted — plus, of course, “Purple Rain,” whose opening verse was unforgivably lost on bandleader Ezra Koenig (but the 8,000 fans filled in).

Weirdest of all: Midway through the 2¼-hour set, the completely un-twangy former Columbia University classmates lit into what Koenig called their “cocaine cowboys” medley, a tribute to their adopted home of Los Angeles featuring California-tied country tunes such as the Flying Burrito Brothers’ “Sin City” and Grateful Dead’s “Cumberland Blues.” See what I mean about bag inspections?

Most of that messing around, though, came after Koenig’s crew had already made a strong case for the songs off its latest album as well as its latest lineup modification.

The new configuration found the singer/guitarist and his original bandmates Chris Baio (bass) and Chris Tomson (drums) joined by four other players, including a second drummer and two multi-instrumentalists who threw in saxophone, violin, dueling pianos and even pedal steel guitar. Which maybe explains the cowboy schtick.

The three original members came out on their own at the start of the show, though, opening with three older tunes in front of a bare, draped stage, including “Mansard Roof” and “Campus” — all fun but simplistic, as if to underline the more complex stuff to come.

“Can you believe it’s been five years?” asked Koenig, who’s been raising his two children with actress Rashida Jones since 2019. “But now we have five albums.”

The spotlight on that fifth record, “Only God Was Above Us,” started with the LP’s two opening songs, “Ice Cream Piano” and “Classical.” Each sounded ornately arranged and unconventionally structured, with those piano and violin add-ons playing crucial roles as the boyishly voiced Koenig effectively sang with a little more weariness.

Later in the show, the group paired the new album’s two strongest tracks, the tender middle-age lament “Capricorn” with the manic and frayed rocker “Gen-X Cops.” Both sounded positively pristine despite their sharp sonic differences.

That pairing of two new standouts was followed by another excellent twofer with the night’s most giddily received, hard-bopping classics, “Diane Young” and “Cousins,” each turning the Armory’s sprawling general admission floor into a wavy spectacle. So did the closing song, “Ya Hey,” although after the rest of the encore it was nice just to hear the band play a song it actually knew.

Fans headed to Vampire Weekend’s second Armory show on Wednesday (not sold out at press time) can expect a different assortment of oldies in the set list, as has been the case in other cities with multi-night stands. Hopefully Koenig knows to brush up on his Prince lyrics in the meantime.