What is it about Vampire Weekend that makes otherwise smart people stupid? Case in point: The friend who denounced VW as “nothing but a Graceland rip-off.” Fun facts: African music did not begin with Paul Simon, white folks ripping off black music didn’t begin with Vampire Weekend (see: all history forever), and no current band of honkies borrowing black musical tropes does so with more imagination and skill than Vampire Weekend. (Marymoor Park, 6046 W Lake Sammamish Pkwy NE, www
.ticketmaster.com, 6 pm, $39.50, all ages)

David Schmader—former weed columnist and Stranger associate editor—is the author of the solo plays Straight and Letter to Axl, which he’s performed in Seattle and across the US. His latest...