free vampire weekend show

Tonight in Union Square, Barnes & Nobel hosted a special event called "Upstairs at the Square: Writers & Artists Mixed".  Author and poet Kwame Dawes and Vampire Weekend were the guests of tonight's edition of this free program for the few hundred in attendance.  Vampire Weekend played an acoustic set of 4 songs including "Horchata", "White Sky", and "Oxford Comma".  Between VW's songs Kwame Dawes, winner of an Emmy Award for his documentation of life in Jamaica, performed selections of spoken word and poetry for the audience.  This "social mixer" of creative professionals was kind of a half-baked idea as it was clear the crowd was there to see Vampire Weekend play from their new album rather than listen to poetry being recited.  In the end through, it didn't matter the band sounded great and the crowd was glad to attend a free show in a unique convert venue.

photos courtesy of Tyler York