Beirut @ Sixth and I Synagogue
People have been telling me for a long time that I'm supposed to like Beirut. I dutifully purchased the albums as they came out. I tried to get into it. But, it definitely took me a while to get over Zach Condon's vocal affectations. The music too, is a problem, with its occasionally crass blend of horns, accordion, and umph-ah bass lines. But Condon has created a sound for his band that draws from Mexico, to the Balkans, to bedroom electronica and somehow it can all work, if you let it, with Condon's quivering voice floating over the top, pulling everything together. The stuff sounds familiar yet anachronistic when compared to most of the indie music out there and it's just hard to know where to put it.
But like most music, it's best suited for a certain place, time and mood. And I can think of no better venue in which to see a Beirut show than the 6th and I Synagogue. The acoustics are huge (a whisper carries forever), the setting beautiful and reverential, the lighting spare and sufficient. There are only two real complaints about the place, which have been echoed by literally everyone who has ever been there. There is no alcohol sold and everyone sits in pews and feels a strange obligation to remain seated and respectful. Upon finishing their first song, "Nantes," Beirut's Zach Condon laid waste to one of these complaints by expressing how awkward he felt playing for a seated audience. People bolted to the edge of the pulpit and crowded the isles. The show began anew. Condon switched out his trumpet for a ukulele to start the beautiful "Elephant Gun."
The cherub-faced and ruddy Condon spoke freely between songs. He apologized for flaunting the beers they brought to the stage with them. After one song, he recalled that he sliced his finger open on his new trumpet the night before and he was still getting used to the instrument.
With everyone standing, it was easy to move along the sides of the temple, to sneak within feet of the stage or climb to balcony for a more complete perspective on the intimacy of the show. Most people stayed planted, though. From the side of the stage Condon's tattoo of a circular bugle on his left forearm was visible. The tattoo makes sense, as horns are surely the backbone of Beirut's sound, paired with the gentler sounds of the ukulele, accordion, bass, and some simple percussion. The trumpets stood out as bright and powerful. The guy who sang harmony with Condon was occasionally a bit overzealous, not unlike Bill Hader's character in the Dracula musical at the end of Forgetting Sarah Marshall, holding notes too long or getting too close to his mic.
Along with favorites like "Postcards From Italy," the set featured a few new songs from Beirut's recent double EP, which is half Oaxacan brass and half electro-pop. The live version of "The Concubine" was particularly sweet. Like much of Beirut's work, it builds on a lone plaintive motif, in this case played on the accordion. The march step drumming was bigger live and the song a little slower than the studio version. Near the end of the set, they played one of the more electronic songs from the new album, My Night With The Prostitute From Marseille, which Condon suggested might be fun to dance to. A few people found room to bounce around, but perhaps it was more fitting that most just stared with rapt attention.
The demure Sharron Van Etten opened the show with songs that are almost too quiet and personal to be shown the light of day. Songs with titles like "I'm Giving Up on You," which she sheepishly pointed out was not about the collective "you" of the audience. Others contain lines meant for a lover, like, "You're the reason why I'll move to the city, or why I'll need to leave." She thanked the crowd deliberately after each song. Van Etten is mousy and pretty, and wears her hair in a Beatles bowl cut. Her voice is smokey and shaky, yet soulful, not unlike that of Zoey Deschanel. At times she sings at the bottom of her range, while at others she lets her voice crack in and out of falsetto. Before she began her last song, she confessed to being so nervous she could barely hold her pick. It was a cute and simple beginning to a great show.