Beach House + Throw Me The Statue + Papercuts - Chop Suey (Seattle, WA; Mar. 18, 2008)

As a lead-in to this Beach House review, I’ll confess that I went to this show with an absolute ignorance of the band. I hadn’t heard their last album, and also didn’t catch the new album Devotion (which I’ve since learned is excellent, by the way). The crack team here at melophobe seemed enthusiastic about the band, and urged me to give them a listen prior to the show, but—since I secretly maintained a vague hope, based solely on their name and a twisted desire to boogie, that they’d be a Dick Dale-esque outfit—I completely ignored this suggestion. I will now say, definitively, that Beach House do not make surf rock. Also, their soft sound completely charmed me.

Chop Suey’s bright, Asian festival theme seemed at odds with what the evening had in store for us. The 21+ crowd murmured their way through the opening sets of Throw Me The Statue and Papercuts, whose repeated requests for dimmer lights were ignored. Papercuts, which featured Beach House’s Alex Scally as a deft keyboard noodler, subtly won the crowd over with a lovely mixture of delicate guitar and chamber pop, which was aided by a laptop and a female drummer as consistent as an 808. Singer Jason Quever’s high, wavering voice washed over the crowd and lured the audience in. Upon reflection, I can see that they were the perfect opening band for Beach House, their soft sound foreshadowing what was to come. Papercuts’ set ended with the surprise appearance of Beach House singer Victoria Legrand, who, after a cool “check check” into her mic, sang a duet with Quever that got the crowd vigorously nodding. This would have made an excellent transition between bands, except for a microphone issue that took 15 minutes of tinkering to solve.

The lights finally dimmed when Beach House took the stage to loud applause. Dressed all in white, with Legrand sporting enormous diamonds, they began setting up two rotating disco balls, which bathed the pair in reflected LED lights. Scally took over guitar and laptop, Legrand was on keyboard, and Quever joined them on stage behind the drums. After a brief pause, the three began a delicate swell of sound that had the crowd instantly mesmerized. Legrand’s vocal delivery was flawless. “But you’re singing the only words you know,” she sang, and watched the audience mouth the words of “Wedding Bells” back to her. As the show continued, my earlier hopes for Dick Dale were hilariously rewarded with some fantastic slide guitar work from Scally, whose waltzing, soaring, weaving melodies slid perfectly between Legrand’s mournful keys. My mind was filled with images of lonely beaches, sleeping in cool sand, and the quiet sound of surf, while I slowly swayed to the steady beats of the laptop, augmented by Quever’s swish-swishing drums.

The droning organ seemed to lull everyone into a hypnotic state that continued until a drunken heckler started ironically shouting between songs, “IT’S TOO LOUD!” And then a possibly transient women pushed her way up to the front and began dancing to a tempo all her own. “You go girl!” she yelled at a bemused Legrand, before pushing her way back through the crowd. The band tried to recover the mood with a very melancholy version of Daniel Johnston’s “Some Things Last a Long Time,” but it was too late. “Our last song will be ‘Macho Man’ or maybe ‘Private Eye,’” Legrand joked with the crowd, then mockingly cooed, “Private eyes . . . watchin’ YOU!” They ended with a gorgeous rendition of “Heart of Chambers” and left the stage to sleepy, happy applause from the crowd. They returned, beaming, to play a slightly more upbeat version of “Lovelier Girl,” before wishing everyone a good night. As the crowd milled outside, I reflected that their set had stopped just beyond being too short, and had left me feeling both satisfied and eager for more. 

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