Vampire Weekend took a bite out of The Replacements' playbook when they treated the fans at their back-to-back shows at Madison Square Garden to a wide assortment of cover tunes from Bob Dylan to Bruce Springsteen to Frank Sinatra and Kate Bush.
The native New Yorkers have covered over 100 artists so far over 41 gigs of their Only God Was Above Us Tour but the band really hit their stride at MSG.
On Saturday, October 5 , the trio fronted by Ezra Koenig, gave the crowd selects from Fall Out Boy, Steely Dan, Culture Club, and The Clash as well as others. Then yesterday, October 6, the two-time Grammy winners did the theme from Seinfeld, "New York, New York," and a Ramones singalong, among many more.
During their long and drunken career, The Replacements covered over 200 different artists.
If VW keeps up the pace they displayed over the past few days, they could catch up to the Minneapolis pre-grunge rockers who have been retired since 2015.
On Saturday the band didn't wait until their encore to get into the covers.
The most creative and hilarious tribute was when they played hometown hero Billy Joel's "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant," a tune the Piano Man has performed at the Garden 146 times during his 150 gigs at the "World's Most Famous Arena."
The number was a faithful rendition with excellent work from touring musicians Colin Killalea on sax and Will Canzoneri tickling the ivories.
After a quick break the band reunited on stage for the encore. Ezra said to the crowd, "that was the show, did you enjoy the show?"
Then he explained back in 2019 during the Father of the Bride Tour, during the encore they would accept Vampire Weekend requests that they hadn't played in the main part of the show.
"But that got too easy," he admitted. "Now we'll take anything but Vampire Weekend requests."
After a rocky star with The Zombies' "This Will Be Our Year" followed by Steely Dan's "Dirty Work," the band got into more familiar territory for itself and the crowd when they accepted the request of Fall Out Boy's "Sugar, We're Going Down."
That led into Dolly Parton's "Jolene" and Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" where Ezra said he had just heard the FM radio staple recently while watching the last episode of The Sopranos.
"Anyone from Jersey?" he asked the crowd to several "yo"s.
One of the more impressive and difficult covers the band does is "Jokerman" from Bob Dylan's 1983 classic Infidels album.
It begins with:
Standing on the waters casting your bread
While the eyes of the idol with the iron head are glowing
Distant ships sailing into the mist
You were born with a snake in both of your fists while a hurricane was blowing
Freedom just around the corner for you
But with the truth so far off, what good will it do?
Jokerman dance to the nightingale tune
Bird fly high by the light of the moon
Oh, oh, oh, Jokerman
That's hard enough to take on during a drunken karaoke night with friends, never mind a live rendition in front of 20,000.
It was their 21st time doing it, having begun in 2018, so Ezra has the lyrics down by now.
On Sunday, VW played one of their delightful matinee shows where doors opened at noon and the headliner got on a little before 2pm. A delight for those of us of a certain age who like to rock out after spending some time at church.
Beginning with lead bass for the Seinfeld them, then a short walk through "Monster Mash," it was then a lovely rendition of "Santeria."
But when they started spreading the news with the theme from the 1977 musical film New York, New York, the crowd in the Big Apple were stoked.
Not as stoked, perhaps as when The Killers' Brandon Flowers made a "special request" via video of his band's monster hit, "Mr. Brightside."
Ezra and the boys only have seven US dates left on their schedule, all in October. At the end of November they hit Europe for two weeks. Get your tickets on the Vampire Weekend website.