The amount of inescapable hype and critical fawning Vampire Weekend received for their 2008 self-titled debut album firmly cemented them as a “love them or hate them” type of band, with the latter certainly a tempting choice—c’mon, white guys from New York playing Afropop-influenced rhythms is at least a little specious. Unfortunately, their music happened to be really good and catchy, and just when songs like “Mansard Roof” and “Oxford Comma” finally stopped running through heads two years later, they had to come out with an equally good and catchy follow-up this January, Contra. (We’ll be rid of you by 2012, “Cousins.”) So really, don’t hate—Vampire Weekend themselves, or the fact that they sold out the Fox Theater for their show this week.
Wed., April 14, 8 p.m., 2010