Of all of the many shows coming to town these past few months, none was more highly anticipated than the Beach House show which, as expected, was moved from the tiny Pike Room to the much larger Crofoot Ballroom. But after all the waiting, it was finally April 1, and a beautiful early April day nonetheless, made even better by the fact that I did not have to work the following day.

We arrived a little after 8:30 just in time to catch opener Bachelorette, with whom we were highly impressed. We couldn’t really tell where she was from but later learned she was from New Zealand, “the land next to the land down under”. One thing we knew for sure is that any office job would be happy to hire this lady, because she was an amazing multitasker. As a one woman show, she was pretty amazing, manipulating a keyboard, beat pad, loop pedals, guitar, computer and visuals all by herself. All of her songs built up into big and beautiful sounds, layered with harmonized vocals and rich electronic sounds. She was gracious and humble to the crowd for listening. I was so impressed that I bought her album which gave me the chance to utilize the cd player in my car for the first time in the 2 years and 3 months that I’ve owned it. Yo, living in the digital age? I snapped a few photos but the lighting was not abundant so none of them turned out. I’m not too good at capturing opening acts for some reason.

Then the wait began for the main event. I had a nice spot right in front of the bench where Alex Scally would be sitting. The stage was sort of decorated like a high school dance, with glittery streamers coming from the four corners of the stage converging in the middle, and with large geometric shapes that looked like two pyramids stacked upon each other throughout the stage. Then Victoria and Alex took the stage along with their drummer and the magic began. The lighting was very minimal as you’ll see, but most of it was coming up from the ground, so the band was always eerily lit, and the glittery materials all over the stage were illuminated from below which gave a pretty cool effect that matched perfectly with their dreamgaze sound.

The group worked their way through most of “Teen Dream” and threw in a few older tunes here and there, and let me tell you, the voice of Victoria Legrand is even more impressive live. As I mentioned on the twitter, she has officially become my number one indie rock crush. And I think someone needs to cast her in a shampoo commercial because her flowing locks were such a huge part of the show, whether carelessly brushed over her face, or bouncing around while she rocked out head down. She graciously thanked the crowd many times, saying that this was their best crowd thus far and said it was their fifth time playing in Detroit, but by far their best time. While I feel like artists say this kind of stuff all the time, you could just tell that they really meant it. I didn’t witness this myself, but the group posted on their Facebook page that it was the first ever crowdsurfing at a Beach House show.

I don’t know what it was, but something just felt special about this show. It definitely didn’t hurt that it was the first amazing weather day of the year and that even at night it was comfortable being outside in just a t-shirt. This was amplified by the fact that the Crofoot has a FANTASTIC two level outdoor patio connected to the main room, so there was an extra element of happiness from me being excited about the impending warm weather and the fact that all of the smokers were comfortably outside (May 1 is right around the corner, which means the start of the smoking ban in Michigan, but luckily many venues have already begun enforcing it, which makes for much more enjoyable shows). It was magical. Highlights for me included “Lover of Mine” and “Zebra”, which was probably the biggest crowd favorite.

Victoria said she wished they could just play for us for 17 hours and Alex commented that he wished they could take us all on tour with them, and I wouldn’t disagree. As a further testament to the good people that they are, Alex spent 10 or 15 minutes talking with the few fans that were left before the venue kicked us all out.

Ok, time for a quick rant. If you are tall and standing in the front row, and I am short and standing in the second row, and I kindly ask if I can stand in front of you for just one song to take some pictures, it’s sort of a dick move to say, “I don’t think so.” Who does that, really? Your line of vision will be exactly the same since you are at least a full head taller than me, and it’s one flippin song. Ok, I’m done, people are just weird sometimes.

Overall, the night was sort of magical with the combination of the warm weather, the dreamy visuals, and Legrands flowing hair and sultry voice. I wanted it never to end. Check my pics below, with larger versions available on the dailybeatz Flickr page.

And I think the pictures might be a little more enjoyable if you listen to this song while you peruse, and imagine hearing it live.

Beach House – Lover of Mine

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