The JD Set

Plans for the 2011 JD Set were met with a nationwide ‘WTF?’ when they were revealed back in February, but while the concept was a pretty easy one to grasp (four artists in four cities were each asked to pick a treasured album and a bunch of like-minded musicians to perform it with), the Dublin chapter of the project really left us scratching our noodles. Divine Comedy and Duckworth Lewis Method’s Neil Hannon chose to perform Vampire Weekend, the 2008 debut album by the painfully hip Brooklyn band of the same name, and frankly, something about the charismatic baroque popper crooning about “sleeping on the balcony after class” just didn’t sit right.
By the time Neil and his band, which includes Cathy Davey, The Magic Numbers’ Romeo Stodart and Jape’s Richie Egan, take to the stage, it all seems to make perfect sense – the Button Factory is perfectly dressed for the occasion (they’ve even tracked down a lookalike of the chandelier from the album artwork), string and percussion sections have been added to the set-up, and the band are demonstrably in sky-scraping spirits. Best of all, nobody’s wearing a club tie or a cable knit sweater.
“I hope you like Vampire Weekend!” Hannon chirps by way of a welcome. Clearly, these four musicians like Vampire Weekend very much, as they’ve chosen to remain almost entirely faithful to the record, even playing the 11 tracks in chronological order. The first voice we hear tonight is Cathy Davey’s on peppy opener ‘Mansard Roof’, and from the first note, it sounds inspired, compelling and impossibly fresh. Not only are Hannon and co. playing exquisitely, but the chemistry is palpable.
There are a couple of notable differences to the album – the strings are souped up on a couple of numbers, Egan rejects the head notes on ‘Oxford Comma’ in favour of a more comfortable key, and Davey’s sickly sweet vocals make a stark contrast to Ezra Keonig’s razor sharp tones. Monster hits ‘A-Punk’ and ‘Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa’ are delivered with unfaltering energy, but it’s the lesser known tunes that really make tonight feel like an Ivy League victory homecoming. The trickiest track, ‘M79’ is also the most thrilling, and when Stodart whines ‘Don’t you wanna get outta Cape Cod, outta Cape Cod tonight?’ over a giddy harpsichord on ‘Walcott’, it’s pure magic.
Vampire Weekend is only 34 minutes and 13 seconds long, so even with witty inter-song banter, it’s over way too soon. The crowd are still whooping and hollering when Hannon returns to the stage for a solo encore, cracking out Divine Comedy newbie ‘Indie Disco’, oldie ‘National Express’ and middle-y ‘Our Mutual Friend’. The full band reunite for surprisingly tight renditions of Daveys ‘Little Red’, The Magic Numbers’ ‘Love Me Like You’ and a particularly celebratory version of Jape’s ‘Floating’. Now all that’s left to do is field requests for a couple more Vampire Weekend tunes...
With musicians of this calibre on board, Hannon’s airing of Vampire Weekend was never going to be a car crash, but what really impressed about the Button Factory show was how naturally the whole thing flowed, and after just three days of rehearsals. When Hannon triumphantly declares his band to be “the best Vampire Weekend tribute band in the world”, he’s only half right. Really, they’re just one clever band name away from being the best tribute act this side of Cape Cod.