Live music review: A two-night stand for the ages by Beach House in Seattle

Ed note: Today’s guest post by The Loyalty Firm founder, Ryan Cano came about after the music manager and festival booker attended a two-night stand by Beach House in Seattle. The shows inspired him to pitch the review to us which we immediately agreed to publish.

It’s been a perfect storm or more accurately a comedy of errors that have allowed me to miss Beach House over the years of touring in Austin. The band would come play ACL’s Moody Theater and I’d be out of town on tour with one of my own bands. They would play a local festival and I’d be working on the production side of it.  The one time I was able to attend a full set (at SPF30) I wasn’t able to see the light-show on the stage. I’d mark that experience incomplete. For one of my favorite bands working today, this fact began to gnaw at me. It become an issue I was determined to rectify.

When Beach House announced a small tour in  that included two shows at Seattle’s Moore Theater in one of America’s best cities May 8-9, I impulsively decided to go to at least one night and make the trip out to the Pacific Northwest. This surely had to be the last run of shows behind the band’s most recent LP, 7 plus a seven-inch single featuring album cut “Lose Your Smile” and unreleased track, “Alien” before they head back into studio to create their next opus. I ended up attending both nights. Damn glad I did.

Beach House opened each set of the two-night stand with the song “Levitation” drawing the crowd in with the favorite while showcasing the musical journey and light show we were about to witness. Standing in a near straight line across the stage, guitarist Alex Scally, vocalist and organist Victoria Legrand and touring drummer and percussionist James Barone hid behind the shadows of the stage design. There was a noticeable dichotomy happening where fans could see each of the band members yet not clearly. An anti-image without erasing the performer. The audience could see every hair whip from Victoria as she rocked out at the intense moments. Every guitar slide from Alex was clearly visible. It was easy to observe how versatile and busy James is on drums. Yet their faces are hardly visible, if ever during the show. The mystery is heightened, yet there’s still a vital connection to the musicians making art on stage and their fans. The ploy directs the fans’ to hone in on the music. This is where the journey started to take hold.

Across nearly 90 minutes each night, Beach House performed a career-spanning set that seamlessly tied each song into the next. It’s striking how confident this band was from the moment they entered our consciousness. One the best compliments a band can receive is that they sound like themselves. Since Beach House made their debut with Devotion, the band has presented their own unique brand of dream pop in a way that is unmistakably their own. For a band that can come across as jammy or riding a vibe on first listen, they reveal a new layer each time you revisit their music. Every layer, every sound, every build-up and walk-down is emotionally intentional. These are not happy accidents on stage, these are choices being made with clear intention. It is a testament to Beach House’s greatness how natural this feels both live and in-studio, a masterclass in songwriting composition.

The two-night Beach House stand felt like a thank you to Seattle, a homecoming show in their home away from home. The band expressed high praise to the city and gratitude for the support their record label, Subpop has provided them over the years. The audience in no small part, thanked them back. Throughout the evening, the fans displayed a range of emotions; people dancing, crying and some sitting down in a hypnotic trance after the crowd stood on their feet almost the entire show. It’s that dichotomy, that contrast, that sets Beach House apart. The band is present yet mysterious. They’re dreamy and mellow yet somehow loud as fuck. You could feel the walls of the historic Moore Theater rattling occasionally. This was a hell of a two night stand. Go see Beach House live.

Check out the band’s recent full set concert film Live at Kings Theater shot by Pitchfork along with upcoming tour dates and set lists below.

                  

 

Upcoming Beach House tour dates:

05-24 Madrid, Spain – Tomavistas Festival 2019

05-26 London, England – All Points East

06-09 Brooklyn, NY -Brooklyn Steel

06-10 Brooklyn, NY – Brooklyn Steel

06-11 Baltimore, MD – Hippodrome Theatre

06-14 Manchester, TN – Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival

08-01 Burlington, VT – Flynn Center for the Performing Arts

08-03 Montreal, Quebec – Osheaga Festival Musique et Arts

08-04 Northampton, MA – The Pines Theater

08-06 Cleveland, OH – Agora Cleveland

08-07 Grand Rapids, MI – 20 Monroe Live

08-08 Milwaukee, WI – The Riverside Theater

08-10 Waynesville, OH – Bellwether Music Festival

08-18 Las Vegas, NV – Psycho Las Vegas

Set lists:  

Moore Theater – Night One – 5/8/2019

Levitation

Wild

Dark Spring

Walk in the Park

Lazuli

L’Inconnue

PPP

Myth

Elegy to the Void

Wildflower

Drunk in LA

Take Care

Space Song

Girl of the Year

Somewhere Tonight

Dive

-ENCORE-

Lemon Glow

Irene

Moore Theater – Night Two 5/9/2019

Levitation

Lazuli

Dark Spring

PPP

L’Inconnue

Walk in the Park

Master of None

10 Mile Stereo

Black Car

Beyond Love

The Traveller

Space Song

Drunk in LA

Wishes

Astronaut

Lemon Glow

-ENCORE-

Myth

Dive