As cars piled into the Del Mar Fairgrounds, it seemed like a night of infinite possibility. From the passerby’s perspective, perhaps it was an Equestrian outing, or with the palm trees and rotund architecture, one could easily have mistaken guests to be at some faux-Universal Studios attraction. Yet, for the hundreds who had conglomerated there, it was the concert venue at the Fairgrounds, The Sound, that symbolized a night of musical transcendence ahead. As the guests entered The Sound, a giant sculpted fish and the oceanic breeze of San Diego’s coasts welcomed these musical voyagers who had traveled far and wide for a night with Canada’s indie rock band, Alvvays. With whimsy in our hearts, and glee in our eyes, we waited excitedly for the night to unfold, to witness the inception point of a beautiful collaboration: the first night of Alvvays’ summer tour with New Zealand’s The Beths.
The Sound’s venue consisted of a balcony and a ground floor, which could easily have morphed into a claustrophobic affair, yet the audiences were conscious of spacing, allowing for a more comfortable viewing than the average standing venue. As onlookers from the balcony floor gazed downward, and the neon-blue lighting softened into darkness, a group of quaint folk in Hawaiian shirts and surfer shorts strolled onto stage at 8 PM, and thus, The Beths took us to the sea.
The opening songs, “Future Me Hates Me” and “Knees Deep”, displayed The Beths’ sonic ecstasy that grabbed the hands of the audience, and never let go. Frontwoman Elizabeth Stokes’ sometimes humorous, but always heartbreaking lyricism, layered on top of the bouncy and colorful instrumentation, emanated youthfulness that one finds idealized in the movies, with all its consequences and miracles. As The Beths sailed further into the night, the seaside brightness of their music was consistently carried through by drummer Tristan Deck. Hearing live drumming is always a blessing, and is even more so when it’s fast and loud and as passionate as Deck’s playing. On tracks like “Mars, the God of War” and “Head in the Clouds”, the band would surrender and allow for guitarist Jonathan Pearce to flourish with extended guitar solos, which blossomed and echoed beautifully in the cavernous chamber of The Sound.
The show wasn’t all running on fumes, though. The bandmates took turns to introduce one another (with their usual Kiwi charm), explained the canonical history of the aforementioned giant fish (named Bird), and also shamelessly plugged bassist Ben Sinclair’s food and travel blog, “www.breakfastandtravelupdates.com”. Everyone immediately went to bookmark Ben’s logs.
As The Beths honed in on their final stretch, they cast a spell of love with “Jump Rope Gazers”, an ethereal ballad that saw young lovers in the crowd sway and hold each other with sheer adoration, as wells of tears dripped from more than just a singular audience member. It’s a stunning expression of one of humanity’s greatest emotional experiences, and the highest point of the night thus far.
With “Expert in a Dying Field”, the Beths’ time with us had concluded, and though our eardrums were blown out, the New Zealand darlings had charmed us dearly with their scrappy and kindly nature, as well as their searing yet lively beach sound. We were left in an ocean of euphoria, and wondered how the night could possibly get any better.
Then Alvvays took to the stage.
Droning static waves stabilized as the members walked onto stage, with a background projection of an enormous flag inscribed with the band’s name. If The Beths felt like the garage-band soundtrack of your teenage years, when the lyrics “I dropped out, college education” echoed from the microphone of Alvvays frontwoman Molly Rankin, it was as if we had been flung into the chaos and beauty of our twenties. With the wind blowing in Rankin’s hair, lights strobing as abstract images intensified, and an assured stage presence, the crowd knew that they were witnessing superstars come to life.
There was a distinctly more dream-like sound with Alvvays, as the guitars of Rankin and guitarist Alec O’Hanley reverberated and sustained, and keyboardist Kerri MacLellan’s synth saturated our ears. What then proceeded was a twenty-two song run, covering parts and pieces of their first two albums, the self-titled and “Antisocialites”, whilst playing out the entirety of their most recent album, “Blue Rev”, an astonishing album in its own right.
Alvvays did not do much socialization throughout the night; rather, they let their music speak for themselves. Much head-banging had occurred during “Velveteen”, “Adult Diversion” and “Not my Baby”, while “Dreams Tonite” and “Archie, Marry Me” saw the unification of the crowd, singing soulfully along to the yearning-choruses of love everlasting.
From audio waves to watercolors, to soaring above canyons, and watching as the lights in a blue sphere converge, every Alvvays song, from “In Undertow” to “Very Online Guy”, had their own unique visualizations. Live video of the band’s performance was superimposed onto abstract images on the screen, creating a new guide amongst our musical voyage. In both a literal and metaphorical sense, these anthems became larger than life, and with it, we felt much the same way.
As Alvvays closed out the night with “Pharmacist” and “Party Police”, it was hard not to reflect on the nearly three hour odyssey of music. It would be disingenuous to simply call The Beths a support act — they were as much the main attraction as Alvvays. Sonically, the two bands complemented each other extraordinarily well, and the summation of such an effort felt major. Individually, these two acts would be wholly gratifying to witness on their own, but when in tandem with each other, this night at the shores of Del Mar was nothing less than magical. If The Beths had taken us to the sea of dreams, then Alvvays were our dowsers, the polaris stars and navigators that guided our way home, just as music guides us through our lives with grace and beauty, now, then, and Alvvays.
Photos by Matthew Pham for The UCSD Guardian
Image courtesy of Rolling Stone
