Beirut at the Phoenix; Thursday July 9, 2009
I suppose going into this show I did have some expectations. I was expecting to have my heart broken by Zack Condon, the crooner superb.
Indeed I had.
He sounds flawless live. I sometimes feel like he pushes his voice to sound a certain way. Kind of like the girl from $100. I sort of wonder what he'd sound like if he wasn't trying to sound three times his age. Zack Condon is only twenty three! Incredible!
He played everything my ears longed to hear. He stumbled on stage to play "Scenic World" first. I was amazed that he played hte songs off his EPs and smaller things. Beirut's sort of a tricky one because he doesn't have any hit, hits so nothing is really radio friendly. He also has a whole slew of tunes that didn't even make his full-lengths. He played a lot of tiny gems that I wasn't expecting.
His band instrumentally consisted of a couple of trumpets, a trombone, guitar, bass (upright and electric), drums, accordion, tuba, a ukelele and a keyboard among other things. There were probably only eight people in his band.
He brought out his ukelele on a couple of occasions. I was dying to hear "The Penalty" which he played later in the set. The first time round he teased me with the equally beautiful "Elephant Gun". That song really blossoms with the "Let the Seasons Begin.." bit. He has a real knack for writing epic, smoozy sounding songs with booming brass bits.
The song I was least impressed with was "Nantes"... This is probably because I watched this video so many times I could predict each second. It seemed pretty rushed and less impressive then the La Blogotheque version.
He even played a Serge Gainsbourg cover. True crooner at this point.
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