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.