Where:
Shepherd’s Bush Empire
Why: Love em
“This is our nineteenth
performance in London, so I feel like an oooooold pony… That’s it, sorry to
interrupt our evening.” A funny little announcement from Beach House’s singer,
Victoria Legrand, which made me chuckle and brought me back down to earth after
floating around the heavens on her voice. I only discovered the day before the
gig that Legrand, the lead singer, is in fact a girl, which even though I have
seen her live I still have trouble believing when I listen to Beach House now.
It’s like the time I found out that Cher was actually a woman (I was around 11
years old… shameful). With Cher it was like, oh yeah that actually now makes
sense. But I still can’t fully realise it with Beach House. Which I quite like
really, it’s mysterious. And also, doesn’t matter at all obviously. Legrand’s
voice is like an androgynous French angel swooping over electronic clouds, with
a killer guitarist (Alex Scally) in tow on the cloud behind, and hair that
could literally destroy you if you came too close. She did seem to be
channelling something of a pony with her amazing headbanging mane – her hair
has a life of its own and was almost like the third member of the group. She
was so passionate and seemed almost fused to her keyboard, which was
appropriate considering how blended and seamless their music is.
I got into Beach House after
hearing ‘Take Care’ at the end of an episode of New Girl, and hadn’t listened
to them that much before I went to see them in March. Ever since then I’ve had
them on almost every day and just love them so much. Their genre is kind of
associated to ‘dreamfolk’ (not an enormous fan of that term but it kind of
works) and to be fair, the experience of seeing Beach House live is like being
caught up in a beautiful dream. The atmosphere in the Shepherds Bush empire was
nothing like I’ve experienced there before – the crowd were SO quiet, like they
were dazed or just respectfully speechless at what was going on (which just
never really happens, or at least not at the gigs I’ve been to…). It’s
impossible not to get caught up in their performance, and the teaming of the
lighting with every note of the music was simple but perfect (see my video below of
‘Take Care’ – persevere and about half way through you’ll see what I mean).
Legrand’s voice is a bit like if Debbie Harry sang only at the bottom of her
range – husky, characterful and enrapturing.
Beach House are a perfect example
of why recordings are never enough – you HAVE to see music live to experience
how it’s really meant to be and to allow the visuals to let you connect with
the band and to get into their personality.
Love them.
Brixpig x
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