These kids stand a chance

The music industry has fallen on hard times with the advent of illegal downloading and a seeming lack of interest from fans to support many of their favorite artists.

But New York's afro-pop-influenced Vampire Weekend hasn't seemed to have been too affected by the apocalyptic reports of declining music sales and a faltering concert business. In fact, the indie-rock superstars scored their first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 in January with Contra, their sophomore full-length.

Contra not only gave the band an increase in sales — it sold 96,000 more copies in its first week than the band's 2008 debut — but it also became "only the 12th independently distributed album to top the Billboard 200 chart since [Nielsen] SoundScan began powering the list in May of 1991," according to Billboard.com.

A No. 1 album is an impressive feat for any artist, but particularly for an independent group such as Vampire Weekend, which is signed to XL Recordings.

To top it off, the band recently began a world tour, during which it has played some of the largest venues it has seen so far. Vampire Weekend will play the 19,000-plus-capacity Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia on Saturday.

Merriweather is a big step up from the group's last show in the Washington area, which was this past April at DAR Constitution Hall — a venue that seats 3,700.

But according to drummer Chris Tomson, little will change about the band as its profile continues to rise, despite the pressures of selling thousands of concert tickets each night on tour.

"I think a lot of it is the idea that we're stepping up and playing these bigger venues and we're gonna play some more songs and hopefully put on a more complete show," Tomson said. "A lot of the dates we played in the spring, they sold out pretty quickly, and we're just trying to make sure people that got excited about Contra, or even our first album or whatever, have a chance to see us play and play these songs. [We'll] come around and do a different set and hopefully people are excited."

Washington audiences have always treated the band well in the past — multi-instrumentalist Rostam Batmanglij grew up in the city — and Tomson said he hopes Merriweather will be no different.

"Being an East Coast band, we've always had good shows in D.C.," Tomson said. "Even our first tour, we played there. I think our first ever show on our first ever national tour was in D.C. at this place called The Red & The Black, which I remember being really tiny, and we actually sold it out.

"We have a lot of fun playing in the area," he added.

Performing at Merriweather will be especially thrilling for Tomson because of his last — and only — experience at the venue.

"Whether it's in Bangkok or Salt Lake City or whatever, [concerts are] all fun, to be honest with you," Tomson said. "I love playing shows. And not to blow smoke up your region's ass, but I am really excited to play Merriweather Post Pavilion ... because that's where I saw my first ever Phish show. So that place has history for me and I haven't been back since then, so I'm very excited about that."

Tomson grew up in New Jersey listening to Phish in high school, but he said the jam band's Sept. 17, 2000, show in Columbia was the only one he could get tickets for at the time.

The story of the band's second album takes place more recently, at the beginning of 2008, after Vampire Weekend's self-titled debut LP was released. The four-piece had its share of fans and more than enough detractors — so goes the build-them-up, tear-them-down mindset of the Internet blogosphere.

"As we put our first album out there and saw the reaction to it, there was a very prevalent way that people reacted to it," Tomson said. "Like, us versus them, or black and white. There were two opposing groups — like we represent this one thing and they represented some other thing. And as we kind of saw these things, even looking at ourselves, we could see that we thought that way about some things as well.

"I think that we realized that that isn't necessarily the best way to go about evaluating things or judging people because, in reality, it's never really quite so black and white or A and B; there's a lot of gray area," he continued. "I think that Contra, the idea of that — the song as well ["I Think Ur A Contra"] — maybe gets a little more into it. The concept of Contra is the conflict of against, and I think that that was something that is definitely throughout the record."

But for now, Vampire Weekend will have to let the haters hate. Tomson isn't worried about winning over any close-minded listeners and is instead more focused on having fun performing and reveling in his nostalgia while at Merriweather.

"Performing for people and having people get excited when you're performing for them, it's f---ing fun," Tomson said. "That's my favorite part, probably."

Vampire Weekend will play at Merriweather Post Pavilion on Saturday. Gates open at 6 p.m. Tickets cost $45 for pavilion seats and the general admission floor and $30 for the lawn.

rhiggins@umdbk.com