Beach House, February 16 at the Fonda

Beach House might not be a band I’d be really into. They came up really big in 2010 and I could probably have seen them at a festival but it wasn’t really much that I could get into. Not that I don’t listen to a whole lot of sleepy or strange music, it’s just tricky to mix the two. Beach House just hadn’t really appealed much to me before. I would have been the last person to guess that they would get as big as they did when we saw them years ago at the Knitting Factory -- heck, I wouldn’t even have thought they would keep going as a band (especially with that name) -- but they did and they turned out some fascinating music so I’m glad I was wrong. Carla was really into their Teenage Dream and of course had to go to the show, and of course I went along. I listened to the album a lot leading up to the show and I can’t say that I fell in love with it (at least not as much as Carla did) but I found some great stuff in it, especially “Norway.” It’s only as sleepy as you let it be, and you could say that it’s strange (is the singer a chick or a dude or some inter-dimensional alien?) but that’s also its greatest strength. It’s different, it’s unique. The show itself wasn’t much beyond the sound on the album, just three people on stage (and a lot of pre-programmed stuff), with lots of lights behind some shaped props (probably to show that this was a band that deserved a slot at a bigger place (at least bigger than the Knitting Factory) and to make up some of the extra money in the budget for the tour), but for a run-through of the high-points of the record, that was enough for the crowd. And for us. Even for me, who let the music carry me away (until those lights brought me back down again).

Beach House's set-list:
"Gila"
"Better Times"
"Walk in the Park"
"Silver Soul"
"Norway"
"Master Of None"
"Lover Of Mine"
"Astronaut"
"Used To Be"
"Zebra"
"New Song"
"Heart of Chambers"
"Take Care"

"Real Love"
"10 Mile Stereo"