Beach House – Live @ The Waldron Arts Center

Concert Reviews • Monday April 13th, 2009 • 5:28 pm

As the lights dimmed and the now standing crowd was gathering around the stage, everyone knew what was next. Beach House emerged from the side stage curtain, quickly making their way over to their instruments and, without hardly any introduction, the band started right in on their first song of the set, “Gila.” “Wedding Bells” and “Used To Be” came next, giving the band an opening energy that could not be topped, seeing as how these were the best three tracks of the night.

Before the band started in on “Master of None,” vocalist Victoria Legrand talked a little about the bands previous night’s stop in Lexington, Kentucky. More than anything she talked about horses and seeing thoroughbreds in Lexington, making the comment that “every girl has a fucked up relationship with a horse.” She looked around on stage and looked out at everyone else after making that comment and asked herself, “Where the fuck did that come from?” Everyone else was wondering the exact same thing.

The stage presence of Beach House was very soft and relatively harmless; rarely would they make any drastic movements. It’s as if everything was controlled by some other force or maybe they are really robots that were programmed before they came out on stage. That would explain Victoria’s robot hand movements during “Darling.” Then again, when you get down to it, with Beach House it’s not really a big focus on the stage presence as much as it is their music. Each and every song captures more and more people in the crowd until the end when everyone wants more.

As the last song, “Heart of Chambers,” came to an end, the band exited the stage and, of course, anyone that’s a fan of Beach House begged for an encore. The clapping and cheering grew louder which brought the band back on stage saying they were only to play one more, which was a big disappointment. What band comes back on stage to please their crowds with a one song encore? I guess Beach House does and they performed “Turtle Island” before setting down everything to say “good night.” There was a pause of disappointment and then the crowd cheered hoping the band would come back out but sadly the lights came on and the sound of someone’s shitty taste in music came over the PA.

Still this show easily fits into my favorites list. The concert was a two hour performance by only two acts and the event started at 9:00 p.m. It was a really relaxed event and being able to get out at a decent time was great to make the drive north back home. Another plus that I love is the taste of Upland beer which is mostly sold at every show Dan Coleman puts on. To be able to host all ages events while catering to peoples want for beer and wine is a big plus that you will find in Bloomington.

Tagged as: Bloomington, dream pop, Indie Rock