Vampire Weekend performed what they pronounced was their largest ever headline show ever in Canada tonight at the Budweiser Stage in Toronto, Canada, as part of the Only God Was Above Us tour.
For the occasion, across a two and a half hour show, the New York band performed the OG version of their Contra single “Giving Up The Gun” for only the second time since they played it at the Enmore Theatre in Sydney in January 2020, telling the crowd they “wanted to do something special” for the night.
With the only other time being at a festival in 2022, this was very much the song’s debut on this tour.
You can see a small snippet of them performing the song here:
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For those playing at home, they technically did it one other time on this tour, at the Hollywood Bowl earlier this year, but it was a “Ska” version called “Giving Up The Skun”. A ska version of “Ottoman” called “Skattoman” has also been popping up on this tour, and was also played tonight at the Budweiser Stage.
The show was also notable for having two back-to-back performances of “A-Punk”, after someone shouted out to them to play it again. You can’t say they ain’t crowd pleasers.
Speaking of, their encore runs on this tour come filled with cover requests from the audience. Everything from ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” to the Ghostbusters Theme and even a little Chappell Roan made the cut tonight. Though only parts of each song were perfomed.
You can see the full setlist here:
Hold You Now
Holiday
Bryn
Ice Cream Piano
Classical
Connect
Unbelievers
Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa
This Life
Sunflower
Sympathy
Pravda
Ska-Ottoman
Giving Up the Gun
Campus
Capricorn
Gen-X Cops
Diane Young
Cousins
A-Punk
A-Punk
Prep-School Gangsters
Mary Boone
Harmony Hall
Hope
Encore:
HOT TO GO!
(Chappell Roan)
Hey Jude
(The Beatles)
Chop Suey!
(System of a Down)
Boys Don’t Cry
(The Cure)
Tom Sawyer
(Rush)
I’m Goin’ Down
(Bruce Springsteen)
Schism
(Tool)
Allison
(Elvis Costello)
Walk on the Wild Side
(Lou Reed)
Ghostbusters
(Ray Parker Jr.)
Common People
(Pulp)
Dancing Queen
(ABBA)
Walcott
The Vampire Weekend Only God Was Above Us tour continues through mid-October through North America, before heading to the UK and Europe. Dates and more details can be found at vampireweekend.com
