Vampire Weekend Attempts Twiddle Cover In Vermont

Vampire Weekend brought their newly launched 2025 tour to Essex Junction, Vermont’s Champlain Valley Expo last night. The band resumed a trend of devoting the start of each encore to taking cover requests from the audience and gave home-state favorites Twiddle's “Jamflowman” a go as part of the sequence on Tuesday.

Frontman Ezra Koenig alerted the crowd that the tradition dates back to the Father Of The Bride Tour, when they’d take requests for Vampire Weekend songs. “It was getting too easy, so last year we started taking anything but Vampire Weekend requests,” Koenig said. “Burlington, I’ve got to caution you, we might know the song, we might not. But we’ll do our best.”

Vampire Weekend started the sequence by responding to a request for Paul Simon’s “Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes” by performing a bit of “You Can Call Me Al.” Koenig realized he was singing the wrong song, so the band delivered a more fully-baked version of “Me And Julio Down By The Schoolyard.” The group then attempted Fun.’s “We Are Young” and had the audience sing along with the chorus.

Ezra noticed someone in the crowd requested “Jamflowman.” Drummer Chris Tomson had the drum beat down and Koenig belted out a few lyrics before the attempt fell apart. “We should work on that. That would be a sick cover,” Koenig noted. “Shout out to Mihali!”

The frontman was familiar with “Jamflowman” as he devoted a portion of his internet radio show, Time Crisis, to the song in 2019. Twiddle then opened a run of Vampire Weekend shows the following August.

Vampire Weekend rolled through attempts at System Of A Down’s “Chop Suey!,” Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer,” Evanescence’s “Bring Me To Life” and the Grateful Dead’s “Fire On The Mountain” to continue the sequence. The latter lasted nearly 90 seconds before the band moved on to The Police’s “Walking On The Moon,” the Eagles’ “Take It Easy” and AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck.” VW finished the cover request portion of the night by performing a bit of Marty Robbins’ “El Paso.” The band wrapped the night with a fiery “Walcott.”

Watch Vampire Weekend take cover requests in Vermont below with the “Jamflowman” bit at the 6:03 mark: