Old fact: The sitting on the floor at the Troubadour thing is acceptable on rare occasions, like when seeing Sodastream or some local folkster with a small crowd. A sold-out concert is not one of those occasions. When people are clearly struggling to reach the facilities and members of staff have asked politely if people could stand it turns into sheer bloody-mindedness. Please note that I had a sweet position at this gig and was not terribly inconvenienced. I just tend to like situations where everyone present can approach their optimum level of comfort - the greatest happiness for the greatest number, dig. That said, once everyone was upright there was a shedload of people who just couldn't see so it seems you can't win.
Boring fact: Yes, it was sold-out (blogs hey?) and thus quite warm and squishy. Just setting the scene.
New fact: Beach House's Victoria Legrand can really sing. The voice on the recordings is one of Beach House's main attractions (and given their minimalism it would have to be) but in person it shone, as in Greatest-era Chan Marshall without the affect, as in classic jazz singers I couldn't name. Too many singers both female and male attain a pleasant amount of intimate huskiness by not singing, instead half-breathing into the mic. Sometimes it's quite nice but it's beyond a cliche and not going to impress on its own. Legrand just happens to be blessed with an attractive, expressive timbre which she has the heart to actually use. As in chest-deep, face-contorting, resonant singing. This is why, when she asked if everything sounded "like on the record", I was tempted to yell out "better". I'm shy so I'm blogging it instead.
Fun fact: Beach House are fun! Their understated, pleasant music of the kind that works well when applied liberally to dinner guests - actually a kind of aural equivalent of the Troubadour's decor - happens to be good enough to permit them the indulgence of being audience-hating, shoegazing prats. They have low tempos and their press shots contain one beard and two sets of downcast eyes - not good signs. However, there's a hint of cheekiness in their name, artwork and musical adornments that lean slightly towards kitsch (rinky organ, aloha slide guitar) - good signs. Thankfully the good signs were right.
The duo and their tour drummer, who mainly added colour to the muffled drum machine rhythms familiar from the records, opened with their most accessible song "Gila" and attacked their instruments with gusto. Victoria wore a fantastic pantsuit and cracked wise in an odd, jet-lagged way. Behind the keyboard she also engaged in some sweet boogie-woogie dancing which may have been an in-joke with the drummer. With some effort a few laughs and other sounds were extracted from the audience and, at the peak of the frenzy, scattered head-nodding escalated into mass knee-bobbing with faint smiles. Their set was short and hit-heavy. Songs from the self-titled debut seemed to be the crowd favourites but, while "Master of None" exceeded the impact of the recording, "Gila" and a powerful "Heart of Chambers" from Devotion were the standouts for me.
New Zealand's Bachelorette also surprised pleasantly in her supporting role. I found her robot/electro-fetishising Myspace shtick a little contrived but on stage she revealed something more organic and heartfelt, despite being one woman with a guitar accompanied by a backing track and an impressive, engaging array of computers and TV screens. While she didn't seem perfectly comfortable on stage (I couldn't help overhearing a loud talker make reference to a teacher on her first day) it's always nice to see some honesty. This made it all the more complimentary when she shared the tourist's view that "you people are not like the people outside". The songs I enjoyed most were at either end of her spectrum: the coldly humorous "Electronic Man" (or somesuch) and the closing song whose organic swirl reflected the change from graphs to blue sky and treetops on the monitors.
I arrived too late to see The Rational Academy but it was Meredith's third last show so I wouldn't mind seeing them before what I regard as a big loss.
"Gila", Beach House: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnIq0X12i-8
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