Vampire Weekend @ HMV Picture House, 14 Feb

Vampire Weekend’s preppy chic was always going to go down a treat on a school night in Edinburgh, but the ecstatic cheers from teenaged girls suggest the New York quartet has breached all-out heartthrob territory overnight. Entering to DJ Kool’s Let Me Clear My Throat, they reach for White Sky and Holiday from sophomore offering Contra before indulging in the first of several call and response karaoke jams with Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa. “We’ve got a reputation as some hard motherfuckers,” jokes Ezra Koenig, “but every tough guy has a soft side.” Cue a rousing run-through of Ben E. King soul standard Stand By Me (it is Valentine’s night after all) which has the ladies in rapture all over again. But it’s only when the blinding veneer of their Graceland-inflected schtick momentarily subsides during the beautifully understated Taxi Cab that the possibility of a band with weightier ideas flashes its fangs. [Johnny Langlands]