Beach House

OndaRock followed the entire Italian leg of the 2013 Beach House tour, and it was striking to see just how successful these shows turned out to be.

There's an unavoidable touch of irony in having to admire them on a rainy evening in early March: the weather accompanying the three shows is hardly beach-worthy, but that doesn't discourage the audience that faithfully follows them. Judging by the long line packed outside Bologna's Estragon at 9:30pm, the tour's first stop, we'd say the rain kept no one away from the appointment with Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally, who hadn't played the city since the distant year of 2008. Back then it was the height of the "Devotion" tour, while now it's the atmospheres of "Bloom" being carried around the world. It's not a sell-out, but it's not far off either, with the venue offering an excellent view. In Rome the following day, by 9pm the line to get in already numbered over a thousand people, and by the end the Piper would prove packed well beyond any reasonable expectation. All this during a period hardly lacking in live events in the capital, which makes the Baltimore duo's achievement even more impressive. After all, "Bloom" (as well as its predecessor "Teen Dream") won over both critics and audiences here in Italy, and that same audience would back the band and shower them with applause for the entire set.

The task of warming up the atmosphere and entertaining the crowd falls to Marques Toliver, an African-American musician alone on stage, armed with a violin in the manner of Owen Pallett: this will be the only instrument accompanying him during the performance, along with some prerecorded instrumental parts run through a loop machine. Stage presence and, above all, an excellent voice are the American violinist's main assets, and he wins over the crowd partly thanks to his likeable manner. It's his first date of the tour, but he's certainly not held back by shyness. The songs don't leave much of an impression, so much so that by the end of the set none of them really stick, but we can't bring ourselves to write off the performance entirely. For an overall verdict, it's better to wait for the release of his debut album, "Land of CanAan", due out on 13 May.

In Bologna it's around 10:45pm when Beach House take the stage: a three-piece lineup, with Victoria Legrand positioned centre stage behind the synths, slightly set back from Alex Scally and touring drummer Daniel Franz, who handles drums and percussion. For a band like Beach House, the confrontation with the stage is something that goes beyond mere live performance: when music as delicate and fragile as theirs is transplanted into what is essentially a rock-concert setting, the results could easily fall flat. Yet, thanks also to a remarkable interplay of lights and staging, the magic of the two Americans bursts out in all its empathy. Backed by a well-structured stage presence, the dream-pop textures flow naturally, without forcing anything, crafted and performed with real devotion and passion. Credit goes to Victoria — on great form all evening — for the way the biting synth and keyboard notes blend perfectly with the guitar flow and percussion. There's a sense of ecstatic sensory abandon, immersions already familiar from the record but amplified by the emotion generated by the live effect. And it's the moment the stage is lit by tiny white lights, as if to paint a night sky behind the musicians, that the performance reaches its peak, taking on the feel of a genuine event

The choice, however obvious, to favour tracks drawn from the more recent "Bloom" and "Teen Dream" helps forge the right connection between crowd and band, making up for the duo's sparse between-song chat. On the one occasion Victoria tries to interact with the Bologna crowd, dedicating "Silver Soul" to all the lovers in the room and recalling the show from a few years earlier, all she gets back are shouts with no real content and blank stares. Better to press on with the music, running through the 16 songs on the setlist, encores included, in just over an hour: a performance that certainly doesn't lend itself to communal sing-alongs or frenzied dancing, but that engages the more cerebral, intimate side of those present.

In Rome things kick off with "Other People" and "Norway", while in Milan and Bologna the opening duty falls to "Wild", but the outcome is the same either way, and the show flies by up to the majesty of "Irene", which is always tasked with the abrupt interruption of a dream as absorbing as few others. A huge emotional charge, an hour and twenty minutes of great intensity, with the music masterfully underscored by simple yet effective lighting. The stage turns now into a starry sky, now into fiery red, but darkness is almost always the dominant note, to the point that it's impossible to make out the performers' faces, to catch their emotions, as if they wanted to stay hidden from the audience. The intellectual connection between band and audience is the real crux of the show, with "Wishes" and "Myth" standing out as absolute highlights, Scally's guitar weaving embroidery over beds of synth, edging close to certain sounds once associated with the Cure. The deep, heartfelt interpretation Beach House bring to every single song translates into messages that are perfectly picked up by the sensory receptors of the assembled fans. Legrand's presence, imposing and theatrical, with her wild mane of hair and a partly new sensual charge, is the true focal point of the show: her voice, which we expected to be thick with effects, instead surprises with its formal clarity, guiding us into a waking dream. So much so that when the lights come back up at the end of "Irene", revealing a stage left desolately empty, for a few seconds we're struck by the doubt of having witnessed a pleasant collective hallucination.

The band rushes off stage without even a farewell to the crowd that followed the performance with such attention and devotion: the one blemish on three unforgettable evenings.

If the self-titled 2007 debut album gave us a band of great promise, disenchanted and outside any fashion or scale of judgement, six years on, and in light of performances of such calibre, it's fair to say that all that promise has been amply fulfilled.

Beach House today prove to have finally blossomed into full flower, buoyed by a crystalline talent that is securing them a bright present and an even brighter future.

And what happens between the 2'00 and 3'20 mark of "Wishes" confirms Victoria Legrand's place among the most credible "rockstars" of the new millennium.

One of the most intense and moving moments of recent years.

Ride the wave of great music

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