If you know Beach House music, then you don't go to see them live expecting them to put on a mind blowing show. You should go expecting them to take your hand and make you travel with their dreamy sound, because that's what they really deliver and do not dissapoint at it.
After a painful waiting of almost an hour after the all right opening act Papercuts, once Beach House stepped into the stage, we understood why the delay. Victoria and Alex were wearing costumes for the occasion:
Ok, not quite costumes, but some elegant clothes for hanging out at the Beach House they set up on stage, with sea and swan included. They even have new lights that will help you to get into their contagious mood of lazyness and slow motion. I liked the whole thing, simple and effective.
Victoria and Alex are a productive couple of friends making beautiful music right now. Since they were left alone one day in a rehearsal with more of their friends, somewhere in Baltimore, they isolated and have been working out their characteristic sound to perfection. You can feel in the air how well they understand and complement each other now these days, even tho they barely talk. Victoria would shake her head with her hair on her face playing the piano and keyboards, while Alex would slowly and carefully extract sounds out of his guitar... no more interaction or spectacle was indeed needed. At least for me.
I have been spinning Devotion, Beach House's latest, for the last two months now and it still is one my top 5 albums of this young 2008. They seem to be having a good time with this record too because, as expected, the set list was heavy on the Devotion side, giving us only 4 out of 13 from their self titled debut album.
This time they played standing up and had a strange to their usual environment. Jason Robert Quever, singer and mastermind behind Papercuts, played drums for some of the Beach House songs during the night, and it obviously helped a lot to their performance. He must be a pretty good friend of the band, someone Beach House trusts on, because it seems Victoria and Alex don't really want to let just anyone to add that organic sound they are missing in their live shows, the organic sound the drum machines cannot achieve, but real drums can. I guess it comes along with the right person. Well, that difference was palpable when Jason played with the band, but unfortunately for them Jason won't be there for long. You know it is working... get a drummer. [photos of the show]
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Were you at the show? How did you like it?
Beach House Links: Stream Devotion, Official Website, MySpace, on Pitchfork.tv, YouTube, Wiki
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