9:00, damn, I’ve been waiting in quiet anticipation for over an hour and a half. I eagerly tap my toes, silently humming along with the house music the folks at Metro have forced upon the attentive following, and oh how it pales in comparison to what is about to erupt in this quaint retrofitted theater.

(Enter stage left), in walks a treble of talent, the beloved Baltimore band, Beach House. They do not hesitate to ignite the evening that’s been doused with well liquor and laughter for good measure and for some time now. What appears to be one last sound check is in fact the rising noise, the vacuum tube amps dusting their coils off, the commencement of the show.  The law of conservation of energy is apparent now, as energy is not destroyed, yet transferred from the stage to the crowd, as they rise in applause to the beginning of what will be a great night for music.

The crowd’s energy subsides, as Beach House performs the cadence call for the opening measure. Subduing tones, those that beckon the introspective state, a place to lose yourself, enter the arena as the crowd’s level of intimacy rises with the occasion. When I complained to a friend, Christopher Patrick of Charlotte, NC, that I would like to hear more guitar out of Beach Music, he proposed, “I think they’re really trying to hit that Lo-Fi sound, using the guitar to create ambient noise and then letting the voices create most of the melody.” Beach House continues on for fourty-five minutes before they end their show with the proclamation, “get it on Chicago.”  Waiting for the call from the back room and up next are the stars of the show, Grizzly Bear.

Grizzly bear is about the beauty of harmonious vocals, but let us not forget the accompanying rhythms and melodies. Simple musical phrases, devoid of an ostentatious talent parade, pile upon eachother like a delicate layer cake, crafting nothing in the absence of the other, but when pieced together, the arrangement embodies a complexity one can appreciate, one can adore, and one can aspire to. The phrases seem almost organic…pulses, waves, or a wind blown seed sprouting up from the corporeal beats (the tap of a shoe), whistles (human and mechicanical), and hums (the lul drum of a engine idyling or the active sound of tires upon asphalt) of everyday urban living. While the vocals could stand alone, accapella, combined together with the experimental phrases, they become like an instrument in their own right, adding a polished finish, the icing to the unfinished cake.

After the transition between bands lulls along, like an ’89 civic, the dull hum of the crowd’s anticipation brews to a fever pitch. Time is called…time seems to pause…the band has emerged. They take the stage with an auspicious prescence, eager to unleash upon this crowd something that is going to keep them passing out laudets for days. The lights fade to green. In the mystic aura the crowd coaxes a chanting applause. Heavy bass lines are supplanted by effortless rhythms. Rising noise raises heartbeats and gets the band and the crowd set for the intensity of music that lies ahead.

After starting with “Southern Point” (Veckatimest), the band woos the crowd with one of their more popular songs from the latest effort, “Cheerleader” (it is available for download on their website, grizzly-bear.net). The rest of the set list was as follows: Lullabye (Yellow House), Ready,Able (Veckatimest), Little Brother (Yellow House), Knife (Yellow House), Fine For Now (Veckatimest), Two Weeks featuring Victoria Legend of Beach House (Veckatimest), Slowlife ft/ Victoria Legend (a live debut from the New Moon soundtrack), I Live With You (Veckatimest), Foreground (Veckatimest), While You Wait for the Others (Veckatimest), On a Neck, On a Spit (Yellow House), and the encore He Hit Me (Friends EP), which was preceded by a special Happy Birthday montage to the crowd’s delight.

The show was a spectacle of production extraordinaire. Every musical detail was calculated, including the use of a variety of instruments, from the usual suspects of guitar, bass, drums, piano, then to the far less implemented classics of clarinet, flute, autoharp, and xylophone. It is also very clear that these guys clearly value the power that vocals can have on the audience. The three and sometimes four part harmonies made the ears tingle with delight from an explosion of frequencies rarely heard collectively in today’s musical market. I was a reminded on a number of occasions of Brian Wilson, Beach Boysesque tones that permeated the crowd, as intimacy rushed forth, endorphines escaped the mind and utopia seemed to cloud the senses.

Beyond the talent of tunes was the stage production, which got a blast of organic light form from custom designed mason jars fitted with light fixtures. The lights were synched up with the music and it made for an all-encompassing mixture of sensual delights for the brain to process. You can tell this quartet cares about their personal image as reflected by their artistic output. No small detail is spared from their mind’s eye when coming up with a way to pull their crowd’s psyche into the event of the evening. And the pleasantries of the evening experienced by a crowd caught in bewonderment are a testament to their planning, their inate talent, and their willingness to push the experimentation to a new level.

-the humdinger’s proxy