Vampire Weekend in glorious return to Birmingham's O2 Academy - review

After that they kind of faded away with a couple of releases, but nothing to bring them back to the forefront of the music scene.

This year they returned with a new album Father of the Bride, with tracks like Harmony Hall and This Life promising a return to the early melodic sing-along hits. Even with those highlights though, there was little to match the punch and immediacy of those early tracks.

Hoping that a live show would prove me wrong we headed to Birmingham's O2 Academy to find out what they had up their sleeve. And proved wrong I was.

The opening song Sunflower showed off their surprisingly impressive guitar skills to their full and set the scene, that these are seriously talented and seasoned musicians who should under no circumstances be underestimated as just another American college rock band.

From that attention-grabbing opening, they proceeded to take us all on a musical journey around the world.

Latin vibes were interspersed with African sounds and a bit of country; uplifting melodies were mixed with hard rock guitar riffs and funky bass lines. There was even a bit of reggae thrown in when they suddenly moved into Pressure Drop.

A-Punk and Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa were still the best-received songs of the night, getting the crowd jumping. But there was plenty more for the audience to get their teeth into.

This Life and Harmony Hall, having received plenty of radio airplay were also highlights and the band's relentless energy and enthusiasm, coupled with their skill and the atmosphere of a packed live gig brought other lesser-known songs that had passed me by on the album very much to life.

Their talent came into its own in the encore as they played a handful of requests on demand and finished with a roof-raising performance of Walcott. It felt like they'd never been away.