Wednesday night, it turned out, was Ska Night at the Hollywood Bowl. That’s how Ezra Koenig described Vampire Weekend’s latest visit to the iconic venue in the Cahuenga Pass, where he and his bandmates arrived this week not long into a world tour behind their fifth studio album, “Only God Was Above Us.” In truth, the LP has less to do with that venerable Jamaican style than any of Vampire Weekend’s other records; ska, at this point, is just “one of the 17 secret ingredients of our proprietary sound,” as Koenig put it onstage.
But it was in keeping with “Only God’s” deep thoughts on history — and with Vampire Weekend’s broader world-building instinct — to arrange this sold-out show around a strong concept with ties to the band’s beginnings. So a pair of long-running ska groups in the English Beat and Riverside’s Voodoo Glow Skulls as opening acts, as well as a handful of oldies that Vampire Weekend “ska-ified,” to use Koenig’s term, over the course of its two-hour set. “Sunflower” was lean and ropy, “Ottoman” slightly manic in its propulsion, “Giving Up the Gun” was probably the band’s most convincing remake, alternating between bouncy verses and a breakneck double-time chorus that would have made Operation Ivy proud.
Did 40-year-old Koenig introduce these tunes, in time-tested ska-revival fashion, with goofy alternate titles like “Skaflower” and, uh, “Skattoman”? Alas, he did. But you had to appreciate the thoroughness.
