Painting titled Final Chance by Tony Bevan, 1983
The Onion headline says it all: "Nation's Boyfriends Dreading 'Free Event in the Park' Season". Some free events are actually worth attending, though, and there are worse ways to spend a July evening than at a free show in the park by indie-oompah band Beirut. They brought dream-poppers Twin Sister with them, who opened the show with a decent set of tunes that relied heavily on their Color Your Life EP, their only major release to date. In a live context, Twin Sister's music lost some of its otherworldly charm, stripping their songs down to simple Slumberland-style indie-pop. This wouldn't be an issue if not for the fact that they look SO YOUNG that the whole performance took on a "high school talent show" feel at times. Still, they've got decent songwriting chops and really shine in a studio context - I hope they get a chance to put together a full-length release before too long.
The sun was going down as Zach Condon and his Beirut cohorts appeared, and the stage was bathed in a warm glow that matched set of rich, folk-inflected tunes they played. I was a little surprised that Beirut's strong points on record don't all translate well to the stage, though. For one thing, Condon's warbling baritone sits right in the middle of the horn arrangements instead of rising above it, and many of his chanson-style melodies got lost in the brass-heavy songs. On the other hand, the trumpet duet sections were great every time (I say "trumpet" even though Condon was playing a cornet or flugelhorn, I think) - Kelly Pratt's trumpet combined with Condon's horn to punctuate each song and get the crowd excited. Pratt also provided excellent harmony vocals throughout the set.
The show's setlist covered the highlights of the Beirut discography and covered a good portion of the Flying Club Cup album and the key songs from their debut and EPs (including "Elephant Gun", "A Scenic World", and "Mimizan" from the Dark Was the Night comp). For me, the key moment in the show was when Condon came onstage alone to start the encore with just his six-string uke - I knew it meant he'd be playing my favorite Beirut song, "The Penalty". Unfortunately, he flubbed the lyric multiple times and, at one point, even conferred with his bandmates to figure out how the song is supposed to go. Like most Beirut songs, the lyric of "The Penalty" is a very simple one, so it must have been nerves - he was playing to a very large crowd. Once he got it sorted out, the song came together beautifully and the band finished on a strong note.
I'd thought the show might be a mob scene, but the crowd was civil (if heavily hipster-ish) and the stage and sound were quite good. This is encouraging, as I am definitely going to next week's free show: the New Pornographers!
"The Penalty" by Beirut
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