As Vampire Weekend celebrates their big return, Ezra Koenig and Co. have hit the road in support of their new album Father of the Bride, which arrived last month.

Their unofficial kickoff was a few weeks ago at Hangout Music Festival in Gulf Shores, Alabama, but the trek stopped at The Sylvee in Madison, Wisconsin, on Tuesday (June 11), giving fans a chance to see a big, festival-headlining act in a perhaps more intimate venue.

With support from Los Angeles outfit Chicano Batman, it was clearly a bit of a left turn. But it seems clear Koenig and the gang are playing somewhat more freely these days and maybe more so on their own terms, despite this being their first release on a major label (Columbia Records).

"Now I'm at this place where I'm kinda like, if the record wasn't done and I wasn't excited to go on tour, I might even wait longer," said Koenig in an interview earlier this year about his carefree outlook regarding the new album. "Not only did I stop stressing about the fact that it had taken so long, I started to be like, 'This makes sense.' Why do people release music more than every five years?"

Thankfully, the wait for Vampire Weekend's comeback is finally over. And they made quite the soaring return with their Madison performance. 

Next up, they have dates in Nashville, Charlotte, Houston, Austin, Atlanta, Boston, Los Angeles and a show in October at Red Rocks in Colorado.

See photos from the Madison show below, by Dan DeSlover.