Beirut at the Wiltern - 05-30-08
After I saw Beirut at the Avalon last October, I kept telling Indie Mom what a great show she had missed. When the opportunity came up to see them again, I bought the tickets right away; and a good thing too because last Friday night's show at the Wiltern was sold out.
An enthusiastic crowd greeted them as this big band spread out on the stage (below). It appeared to be nearly the same group as last fall: Zach Condon with his uke and trumpet, Perrin Cloutier on accordion, Jason Poranski on guitar and mandolin, Paul Collins on bass and uke, Nicholas Petree on drums, Kristin Ferebee on violin, Kelly Pratt and Jon Natchez on a variety of horns and other instruments. This seems to leave at least one band member unidentified, and some I'm not sure who is who.
The songs were fairly evenly divided between last year's Flying Club Cup, 2006's Gulag Orkestar and earlier songs, and new songs, hopefully appearing on the next album. Zach's voice sounded a little different, and I found out later from a comment on his MySpace that he had a cold. This concert also was not the smooth operation I saw last fall. Early in the show somebody announced that the big red standup bass was broken "again." I assume this was the reason for several whispered conversations between songs as the band made impromptu adjustments for the loss of the instrument.
Click any photo below for larger version.
Left, Zach pushes his hair back; Right, the french horn tattoo on his left forearm
From left: Kristin Ferebee, and I think Jason Poranski and Paul Collins
Setlist:
1. Nantes
2. Brandenberg
3. Elephant Gun - my favorite of all!
4. New song, a trumpet-based instrumental, possibly a cover of a song by Caetano Veloso
5. Mt. Wroclai (Idle Days) - I love this one too
Left, Kristin Ferebee; Right, Perrin Cloutier
6. The Penalty
7. Forks and Knives (La Fete)
Left, Is Nick Petree having fun, or what? Right, a home-made poster by a fan
8. New song - a halting funeral march that melts into haunting trumpet--gorgeous!
9. A Sunday Smile - Indie Mom loved the French horn duet
Stage lights set a sunny glow for Sunday Smile; Right, french horn duet
10. Scenic World - always sounds better live than the album version with its canned drums
11. Cherbourg
12. Zach introduced this as one of the first songs he wrote. The lyrics sounded like Spanish to me.
13. After the Curtain
Encore 1:
14. Postcards From Italy
15. Siki Siki Baba - No Beirut concert would be complete without this raucous crowd-pleaser. But we had to bring Zach back for one more song...
Encore 2:
The Bunker
The live tracks here are good-quality (256 kbps) recordings from last October's show in Toronto.
So ended one of the last concerts Beirut will be performing for some time, the scheduled European tour having been cancelled. In a letter from Zach posted on the Ba Da Bing website, Zach apologizes for the cancellation and ends with, "It's come time to change some things, reinvent some others, and come back at some point with a fresh perspective and batch of songs." Elsewhere he has explained that he just can't tour and write and record a new album at the same time, which is perfectly understandable.
Maybe it had more to do with the cold, but Zach looked a little tired here. The past two years' successes were certainly hoped-for but unexpected. The pace would have burned anybody out. Also, see the wedding ring on his left hand in the photo on the right, above. That was not there last October. I'm sure he'd like to settle in with his new spouse for a while instead of traveling.
MySpace | Website | Label: Ba Da Bing Records
Flying Cup Club Website
See also this review of the same show by Passion of the Weiss's Jeff Weiss for the L.A. Times.
Additions and corrections are welcome. Leave a comment.
4 comments:
Thanks for the good review; those sure are some talented kids!!
I hope Zach & band have a nice furlough and come back with some great new music. I'll see them again in a heartbeat, in a whatever form they return.
The New Song (4.) is not the Caetano Veloso cover, I think it's just a trumpet arrangement for the new album.
I believe the Caetano Veloso cover is #12. And it's a cover of O Leaozinho. Beautiful beautiful beautiful!
Thanks so much for putting up the set list and pictures, it was an amazing concert!
you don't see many french horns in indie rock bands these days. how lovely that must have been.
he does look tired, poor kid. i don't know how they keep the pace up, either.
Thanks, as always great stuff - I read often as we like a lot of the same bands.
If you have Cherbourg live, it'd be great if you could put it up. It's my fave off of the Flying Cup, and the take away show of it is so unbelievable... Thx!!
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