Vampire Weekend seem quite a distinctly different band to the one they used to be. Whether that’s a good thing, of course, will depend heavily on your feelings about their styles, old and new, but gone, largely, are the days of headily afrobeat undertones. Here in their place are the days of offbeat indie-jazz  with the occasional extended noodly interlude. And here, for the first time in Ireland, are the days of arena shows.

Of course, it feels increasingly like half the bands getting any radioplay at all are playing at arena level (and the rest barely surviving), but it is nonetheless an odd setting for Vampire Weekend. Sure, they have the cavernous stage backdrop, the curtained ‘sections’ of the show, and a massive at times eight, or nine-piece band to match the scale of it all. But the venue is perhaps two thirds full at best, and Vampire Weekend, let’s face it, have always been at their best somewhere more intimate.

Which is not to say this isn’t a great experience, especially from the front row. They start off as as a gentle three-piece for a couple of tracks, before the curtain drops to reveal that supersized band, with the set a fairly even blend of old and new – though their latest ‘Only God Was Above Us’, which lends the tour its name, is unsurprisingly overrepresented. With the charismatic Koenig and ever-dipping bassist Chris Baio at the heart of things, we’re served up sing-along classics like ‘This Life’ and ‘Unbelievers’, intersected with more playful and extended newbies like ‘Connect’, which features a massive, swirling interlude at its heart.

Koenig has always had a quirky and unique vocal – a theme that holds for his lyrics, too – and if this particular show represents anything, it’s his more recent tendency to go long form extending that oddball dynamic to the show itself. Their current offering is long, crammed with pace changes and directional oddities, and has elements that highlight particular members of the band almost outside of the concept of a defined song. It feels more about the ‘whole’ of the show than any individual moment.

Ray Suen, for example, is a touring band member who previously worked with the likes of Passion Pit, The Flaming Lips and Childish Gambino, and looks the best musician on the stage, with focus often given over to his blend of keyboard, guitar and outstanding violin inserts. He’s allowed to shine, extensively, and it’s rarely less than wonderful and he’s not the only strong addition to the band.

For all the individual moments however, it’s still the tracks that long-time fans would be quick to recognise like ‘Oxford Comma’, ‘A-Punk’, an absolutely euphoric ‘Harmony Hall’ and ‘Diane Young’ that provide the quick-fire highs, but there’s so much more now than simply the setlist itself. Musical surrealism, served up in the likes of the ska versions of ‘Ottoman’, dubbed ‘Skattoman’, a second ska moment in ‘Hannah Hunt’ (which barely works, but full marks for imagination).

A revamped version of SBTRKT’s ‘New Dorp, New York’ adds depth of interest and colour to a set that feels like Vampire Weekend gone avant-garde. To top it all off, the finale is both surreal and brilliant. Declaring the show over, the band returns to the stage to run through a series of covers shouted at them by the audience; simply anything the audience can think of.

That the band can spontaneously play *anything* seems far-fetched and we’re sure Koenig is selective on what he chooses to engage with, but a quick bit of research tells us they now do this segment every night, with very, very little overlap in tracks selected. What comes out is, admittedly, a mixed bag: a violin solo drawn from ‘Fairytale of New York’ and a barely coherent take on Amy Winehouse’s version of ‘Valerie’ fall at the weak end of the spectrum, while a raucous rendition of The White Stripes ‘Hotel Yorba’ and BIlly Joel’s ‘Scenes From An Italian Restaurant’ sound like they’ve been part of the set for years.

Vampire Weekend are not what they once were: they’re something else entirely, something experimental to the point of off the cuff, fun-loving, slightly daft and at times slightly drawn out. They don’t – or at least don’t often – have the distinctive immediacy that hooked so many almost two decades ago, and sometimes, at the show’s lower ebbs, if we were to be mean, the whole thing feels just very slightly up its own hole. But when it works, and it often does, it also represents a whole new level. And wow, is it interesting.