BEIRUT certainly make for a striking first impression, both visually and aurally. It’s not every day you come across an 8 strong line-up of twenty-somethings with a taste for Salvation Army–style instrumentation (think tuba, flugelhorn, trumpet, ukulele – well maybe that last one is less Salvation Army and more George Formby) punting a hybrid of Balkan folk, French chanson and Indie sensibilities.
Opener “Gulag Orkestar” (title track from their debut album out now) is brassy (quite literally) and funereal and also allows the band to show off their tendency to hollow harmoniously, as well as wordlessly. For “After the Curtain” they expand their sonic palette to include some neat electric-piano style synth sounds. Current album closer, live the song benefits hugely from a latin-style drum beat (complete with glass bottle as cow bell substitute) and full band sound.
Lead vocalist and brains behind the operation Zach Condon has a beguiling croon which at times reminds this reviewer of a more earnest Stephin Meritt (of Magnetic Fields fame). The communal stage presence, which occasionally swells to nine members due to the presence of an extra string player, also brings to mind images of those many-legged indie behemoths from Canada, Arcade Fire and Broken Social Scene.
Unfortunately, following a killer opening one-two, the mid set material fails a to stand out, a few too many 3/4 and 6/8 numbers with pretty, often wordless vocal melodies (think Cocteau Twins crossed with Yann Tiersen), dominated by ukelele and accordion.
Also the cover of easy-listening standard "Brazil", though very enjoyable, recalls the one-time practice whereby pop-music big bands of the fifties and sixties would incorporate "exotic" elements, such as Brazilian rhythms or Hawaillian melodies, into their sound, in the process somehow taming and homogenising the original musics.
Not to suggest that Beirut are tame, but there is an amount of "trying-it-on" attached to their sound at this point (Balkan folk music having yet to dent the mainstream, or even the indie mainstream, to any large extent) which Condon and his cohorts will have to transcend.
On the night he seems a little non-plussed with the Glaswegian reaction, which is reasonably favourable, but maybe not as raucous as he had hoped for. Even so his fellow musicians performed with both precision and passion, and despite some small reservations, Beirut are likely to become a force to be reckoned with in the not-so-distant indie future.
CALEXICO are a band who have proved themselves adept at incorporating elements of disparate musical styles into their sound without trading in any of the soul or fire of their source material. However this year’s “Garden Ruin” in parts comprised a move towards a somewhat more conventional rock sound, encompassing more four to the floor backbeats, distorted electric guitars and hooky harmonies than previous efforts.
Tonight they choose to open with a brace of the newer numbers; the gentle, pedal steel flecked waltz of “Yours and Mine” and “Roka”, the new album cut most reminiscent of the “old” Calexico sound, with its latino shuffle and Spanish-language interjections, courtesy of dab hand multi-instrumentalist Jacob Venezuela.
A curious mix of mid-tempo numbers follow, amidst several bouts of instrument-swapping. These include “Across the Wire” and “Sunken Waltz” from 2003’s “Feast of Wire”, the instrumental “Minas de Cobre” from 1998’s “The Black Light” and a sturdy cover of The Minutemen’s “Jesus & Tequila” (sadly they chose not to cover “Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing”). We are treated to mariachi trumpet, old-style waltz accordion and (occasionally drowsy) vibraphone but despite encouraging whoops from Jacon and Joey Burns the ABC audience fails to catch fire. When they kick out the jams and the fuzz boxes for a mid-set flurry of rockier material even some of the band members themselves seem non-plussed.
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The drawn out rock-out at the end of “Not Even Stevie Nicks” is a good case in point. Joey has every intention of squeezing out an electrifying, feedback laden solo and John Convertino tries his best to keep himself interested and interesting on the skins, but the desired shivers along the spine never really take hold and this reviewer finds himself pining a little for the get-in-get-out leave-them-wanting-more economy of the recorded version.
It is only once the band pay respect to their mariachi roots of sorts, two-thirds into the set, that the audience really responds and the something-in-the-air I remember from my previous live Calexico experience begins to make an appearance.
“El Picador”, the trumpet led opener from “Hot Rail” marks a turning point and from there the band’s perfectly pitched cover of Love’s “Alone Again Or”, followed by a suitably energised and plugged-in “Letter to Bowie Knife”, pave the way for the good-time party vibe of “The Crystal Frontier” and an enthusiastic call for the encore.
Initially Joey forgoes the much requested “Ballad of Cable Hogue” in favour of “All Systems Red”, a stand-out from “Garden Ruin” which really comes into its own in a live setting, set alight when he switches from acoustic to electric and lets rip a scorching wall of noise. Then a slightly rusty but well-spirited “…Cable Hogue” satisfies the old faithful and an extended “Guero Canelo” actually does leave the lion's share of the assembled punters wanting more when the band finally do say their goodnights.
One can never fault a band for trying to expand their sonic horizons, keeping things interesting for both themselves and their audience. If anything it’s to be encouraged. Yet at times tonight it feels that part of Calexico, at any rate, is not entirely convinced by their recent rockist tendencies. It could be that the occasional live foray into 4/4 and FX pedals, when tracked down in a studio and dispersed across an album’s worth of material, looses something in the translation and has a knock-on effect on the live show itself. Or it could be that Calexico are a band in transition, still not entirely comfortable in their altered, if not exactly new, suit of clothes.
Of course the only way to find out is to wait and see and, on the evidence of tonight’s best moments, Calexico are still a band worth waiting for.
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