Beach House – Granada – 4/21/10

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Beach House is not for everyone.   But Beach House is a band I absolutely love.  Which is why it completely shocked me that they sold out weeks prior to their show, which was also prior to myself being able to get a ticket.  Luckily, my friend Anna is super hooked up and she had a pass and a plus one, so we both got to go, and I’m glad I did, because the show was fantastic.  Hit the jump for the full review, setlist, photos and sample MP3s inside. 

Due to an exceedingly slow waitress for dinner, I missed all of the opener, Washed Out, unfortunately.  We did manage to walk in just as Beach House started their first song, Walk in the Park, and the show was off and running from there.  The only time I had seen Beach House previously, I was at SXSW, and they were sporting a mostly two piece lineup of her and dude playing guitar, accompanied by a drum machine.  For the Dallas show, they had migrated to a permanent hree piece setup, adding a live drummer and sporting recorded basslines for much of the show.

Throughout the night, Ms. Legrand sounded absolutely fantastic.  She has such a cool voice that is so full of character.  She is also nearly pitch perfect live, which is a real treat, unlike some people who are completely unable to replicate their overly produced studio sound (looking at you, Ke$ha.)  The whole vibe was very chill, along with the crowd’s reactions, even if they cheered relatively enthusiastically in between the songs.  (Though, when the guitarist teased Zebra near the end of the main set, the place went nuts.)

One side note, as any song off their pre-Teen Dream material doesn’t really require a live drummer, and in fact, the drum machine is almost part of the songs’ signature sound, there were many songs that the group ran the drum machine and had the live drummer.  The drummer, in those cases, was just providing fills and other such accents, and at times, he literally looked like it was impossible to be any more bored.  Just go listen to the drums on Gila – they are so slow and relaxed that a smart housecat could probably play that part.  Great song….nothing much to the drum track.  Anyways.

Beach House worked their way through almost the entirety of Teen Dream, which sounded excellent to a song, but there are still a couple of old favorites that I would have loved to have seen (Wedding Bell and Home Again).  Even though a band such as Beach House can sound great most of the time, one thing that Beach House does not do particularly well is bringing a show to a show-stopping crescendo.  The times that the band would build to attempt such a high point, the sound would be a little washed out, fuzzy, and screechy, to be honest.  They play so chill the whole set, that suddenly ramping up with a ton of extra sound didn’t always go that smoothly (though not always), but that may be a result of the Granada’s often suspect sound qualities moreso than the band’s inability to really bring it. 

I really enjoyed the show and I highly recommend these guys to anyone, and their last two albums are two of my favorites from the past 3-4 years, easy.  Hard to not love this band.

Beach House – Zebra – From Teen Dream (CD, Vinyl, MP3, iTunes)

Setlist:

Walk in the Park
Lover of Mine
Gila
Better Times
Norway
Silver Soul
Master of None
Astronaut
Used to Be
Zebra
Heart of Chambers
Take Care
-Break-
Real Love
10 Mile Stereo