The Doug Fir was crammed to capacity for last night’s Vampire Weekend show. I thought it would be a crowd of college-age indie music lovers, up to see the latest blog phenomenon from NYC. But the average age of the audience was surprisingly old, and the house was filled with scenesters who were curious about all the hype, rather than fans there to see the music.

Lots has been said about the Vamps; they’re Northeastern prep-school Topsiders wearers, making Afro-tinged pop music. It’s Paul Simon’s Graceland updated for a simple four-piece rock band. And to their credit, there’s not much conceit or trickery in what they’re doing. It’s four guys with bad haircuts and lame clothes, playing their instruments without any effects or distortion, singing carefree songs with pretty stupid lyrics. While it’s marginal fun, it’s also surprisingly lacking in substance.

Then I looked over at the bald guy in his late 40s who was standing next to me. With pressed, striped shirt tucked neatly into a clean pair of jeans (his after-hours casual wear, no doubt), he was loving every second. He danced like the whitest guy at your white cousin’s white wedding. He raised his fists in the air, did some pelvic thrusting, screamed “Woooo!” at appropriate intervals. This guy was a FAN.

And all of a sudden, I got it. Vampire Weekend is like Jimmy Buffett. The tropical-tinged happy goodtime music reminds people of spring break. It’s sunny, cloudless, warm music. It’s like a trip to Margaritaville, and on a chilly, damp March evening, it was pure escapism.

So, I foresee one of the following three futures for Vampire Weekend (which you can read after the jump).

1. The Hootie & the Blowfish scenario. The Vampire Weekend machine trucks along, continuing to pick up steam. Their record gets a shitload more popular, especially when summer starts warming up. All the suburban kids, and their mothers, and their grandparents, jam to "Oxford Comma." It becomes a phenomenon. Then, when the time comes to release their second album, it's a massive turd, no one buys it, and the Vamps quickly fall back to the sidelines. There's quite a good chance of this happening, since Vampire Weekend played a pretty short set, and couldn't even muster an encore. They don't even have a cover song to flesh out their setlist. (If they don't write, or learn, some more tunes, this could be what happens.)

2. The Jack Johnson scenario. Vampire Weekend writes the score for Curious George II. They make a conscious decision to never write any music of any consequence, and subsequently are assured a long career in making bland, sweatless, unchallenging music for sorority girls and grown-up sorority girls. They become filthy rich buy yachts and houses in the Hamptons. (This scenario is pretty likely. If I was a betting man--and I am--this is the pony I'd pick.)

3. The Joy Division scenario. Troubled frontman Ezra Koenig offs himself after failing to reconcile the band's burgeoning success with his artistic integrity. Mopey, darkhearted teenagers for generations to come discover the abbreviated output (an album here, a smattering of singles there) of this darkly-named "Vampire Weekend" band. The self-titled debut is eventually considered one of the finest albums ever made, and little goth hearts the world over pledge tear-eyed allegiance to tormented, beautiful, forever-young Koenig. (This will not happen.)