There was a line down the street when I arrived at the legendary 40 Watt Club in Athens for Beach House’s first ever performance in the city. It would also be my first ever Beach House show, and to be honest, I was pretty excited.
Too bad I had to sit through a marathon opening act. A teenager who only mumbled his name and then preceded to play short ukelele songs (some just a minute or so of strumming without lyrics) for about 80mins. It was punishing.
After that, the guitarist from Beach House who ALSO mumbled his name (I was paying attention, I swear to god) and then promised “this will be short and painless” played about 25mins of songs that were neither short NOR painless. I suspected that the gods were just testing me, to set up what would SURELY be a beautiful, magical performance by the band that the sold out room was there to see.
Right?
It was a short break, and then the 3 big pyramids at the back of the stage FINALLY lit up and the Baltimore Dream-poppers wobbled out and gave us a couple of waves and peace signs before diving in. I had talked earlier in the evening about Victoria Legrand’s sometimes’s VERY public bad-attitude, and I was wondering if we’d get to see any of it. During the first few songs, there were monitor issues, and we got a few temper-glimpses, but things got smoothed out. After that, things were totally pleasant.
The thing about a Beach House show is that they make swimmy, lush down-tempo pop music that is really easy to relax to, so heading into the show, I was wondering if it was going to be awkward to hear those songs played very loudly….and it kind of was. It was a little awkward and the crowd (at least around me) was REALLY, REALLY drunk. And truthfully, the awkwardness and the drunken intensity made it kind of perfect. The band seemed to REALLY be leaning into the songs and the audience was dancing and waving their hands and sitting on shoulders, and it was still just the dreamy pop music that Beach House is known for.
Legrand and company skated through selections that mostly pulled from Teen Dream, but also touched on popular numbers from Devotion and the S/T album. The selling point of the whole performance was that you could just see that the band was pushing pretty hard. They were excited. And so was Athens’s drunk ass. The dancing, head-banging (yes, Victoria headbanged to more than one moment in the show) and intensity sat so awkwardly against the beautiful, pristine performance being put on. The juxtaposition was awesome and made for a really unique show experience.
