Vampire Weekend Debut New Song as Bonnaroo Kicks Into Gear

Midway through Vampire Weekend's Thursday night closing set, frontman Ezra Koenig jokingly asked the crowd, "Did anyone take public transportation to get here?" Judging by the hours of traffic it took thousands of cars and RVs to roll into the Bonnaroo campground, not many people did. Still, the preppy pop-punk crew got the crowd riled up with the sparkling pop-rock jam "M79," which Koenig described as their tribute to public transport. Vampire Weekend's set mostly featured tracks from their debut disc, including "One (Blake's Got a New Face)," on which Koenig engaged the crowd for a deafening sing-a-long. But the band were brave enough to unveil a new, still-untitled song, and it might be their most afro-pop-inspired jam yet, with synthesized tribal chants, sparklingly clean guitar lines and Koenig's amped-up hoots and hollers. "If you don't know this song," Koenig told the crowd, "and you're on drugs, all you have to do is dance."

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Song Stories

“All Along the Watchtower”

The Jimi Hendrix Experience | 1968

Jimi Hendrix got hold of Bob Dylan's early John Wesley Harding tapes and in late 1967 recorded a version of "All Along the Watchtower" with the Experience in London. Dissatisfied with that first development, Hendrix brought those tapes with him to New York in early 1968 when he began work on Electric Ladyland. Eddie Kramer, Hendrix's engineer at the time, told Rolling Stone that Hendrix "was still looked upon by his basically white audience as the mammoth black guitar hero. There was a constant fight within him to expand himself." Hendrix's successful take on Dylan's work has long been recognized by the songwriter. "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way," Dylan wrote in the liner notes to his Biograph box set. "Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."

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