Vampire Weekend Brought Billy Joel Covers And A Piano Man Tribute Band To MSG

Vampire Weekend do a lot of covers. We know this. But they really leveled things up for their hometown shows at Madison Square Garden over the weekend. On Saturday night — following an opening set from the Billy Joel tribute band Turnstiles — Vampire Weekend covered the Piano Man’s epic “Scenes From An Italian Restaurant.” The stage setup was complete with a couple dining at a faux Italian restaurant, who were also being waited on. Ezra Koenig’s former Time Crisis co-host Despot, who also owns the Chinatown bar Time Again where Vampire Weekend did a pop-up show the other day, was one of the diners.

“Italian Restaurant” was included as part of the night’s regular setlist, as opposed to the covers encores Vampire Weekend usually do. They also nodded to Joel in that portion, too, doing a rendition of “My Life.” Fitting, as Joel recently completed his own historic MSG residency with his 150th lifetime show.

Vampire Weekend did a matinee show on Sunday that also boasted openers Turnstiles and a memorable covers encore. They put up a video from Killers frontman Brandon Flowers personally requesting a cover of “Mr. Brightside,” and VW delivered. See video below.

A Billy Joel cover band is opening for Vampire Weekend at MSG and their next show is at an Italian Restaurant outside of Boca Raton pic.twitter.com/ot2U0Ku9Cq

— this happened to my buddy eric (@flowrmeadow) October 6, 2024