Beach House @ Kings Theatre (June 20, 2022)

Beach House have a lot of good songs in their extensive catalog. So many gems that it's still a great show even if they leave out a bunch of my favorites. I had a similar reaction the last time I saw them. And like then, I almost didn't go to the show this time; good thing I snagged a ticket last week.

Unsurprisingly, their setlist was heavy on the new album (Once Twice Melody, which is pretty much a double album), and this wasn't a bad thing. It was good to hear a bunch of the new tunes, most of which were solid. A couple of my favorites from the album were each a book-ending highlight or lowlight: I was excited when they started with "Once Twice Melody", but something about the sound mixing at the beginning (or maybe it's just how the live rendition is?) didn't hit quite the same; and they ended the night with a great performance of "Over and Over" (including a false ending), which is easily the track on the album I've listened to the most. It would have been nice if one of the new songs was "Masquerade", which is probably the most different (and dancy, perhaps) from the others.

The rest of the songs were scattered from their other albums since Teen Dream, which itself only had one song played - good to see them moving on from there, even though it was a fantastic breakthrough album. More standouts included "Dark Spring", "Levitation", and "Lemon Glow", but then again I thought the same last time as well. In general, the live renditions stayed pretty faithful to the album versions, save for Alex's solo on "Space Song" (I think?) - which was one of the rare times that a surprise solo was a pleasant surprise.

Overall a great performance, with little to complain about. Except maybe wishing that Fran was in town to enjoy it by my side.

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Rating: 4.6/5