Photo by: Matt Ellis/Spin

Earlier this week, the four-piece Columbia alumni held a concert directed by Steve Buscemi for American Express Music Unstaged at Roseland Ballroom, New York City, where they finally played the newest song from MVOTC Obvious Bicycle for the first time. It was also the first time we saw Ezra Koenig sang without his Epiphone Sheraton II/Rickenbacker 330. According to Rostam Batmanglij’s interview with NPR regarding Obvious Bicycle, “This song is interesting because it evolved. It started with a very hectic drum beat that I made, and that inspired me to play piano, and I just played these simple piano chords that came very quickly. I was listening Plastic Ono Band, the John Lennon album a lot, and that might have had some inspiration on me.” Their most recent track is obviously different than the other Vampire Weekend’s song. Also in this interview they leaked a short clip of ‘Hudson‘, another track from the new album.

Last night the band performed ten songs during a live session at Maida Vale Studios for BBC Radio 1′s Zane Lowe and they played all the six new songs. This is the set list and times: Diane Young – 00:48 | interview – 3:44 | Holiday – 8:04 | White Sky – 10:21 | Obvious Bicycle – 13:38 | Shots/Everlasting Arms – 18:05 | Step – 22:28 | Ya Hey – 26:56 | Diplomat’s Son – 32:28 | Unbelievers – 38:56 | Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa – 43:13 | A-Punk – 46:57 | Diane Young (encore) – 51:18.