On Friday I saw Beach House at The Billiken Club with my little sister Julia. I love going there for so many reasons. It’s free, it’s just the right size (not so big you feel like you can’t see, but not so smooshed you can’t breathe), the sound quality ranges from pretty good to unbelievably great, and every once in awhile a band I love comes through.

So, Beach House. I had seen them once before in Chicago, but with a bunch of other artists from Baltimore (unbelievable, however that’s another story). This time I got to focus on them. Julia and I swooped up a spot in the front row, so we were about three feet away from Victoria’s deep, encircling voice and organ. We had a perfect view of Alex casually dancing around with his guitar, and just watching him makes it impossible not to smile. The guitar sounded so incredibly crystal clear live that each pluck made my head spin. Plus there was so much dreamy reverberation in the room that for the entirety of the show my head felt like a cloud. I love when your experiences, be they music related or anything else, completely remove all thoughts or worries from your mind and allow you to fully let your body, its senses, and the energy of the moment take over. I sound like a total hippie, but I don’t care! That is the best way I can describe the way felt on Saturday: wholly unaware of anything but what my senses were allowing me to feel. Thank you Beach House.

Here’s a video I took of one of their newest songs. I wish the sound quality could be better, but unfortunately my little camera can’t handle a huge amount of sound. Victoria attempted to read from a pocket journal set on her organ during this song, but a fan that was pointed directly at her kept blowing the pages and she couldn’t. You’ll see this same fan waving her hair around, which as she said looks pretty dramatic and was obviously unintentional. Two seconds after I finished filming my camera died. This song was definitely the climax of the show, so I’m really happy I chose to turn it on when I did. Maybe the fact that Victoria was able to play it without looking at a reference for the first time was what made it so powerful. Butterflies were in my stomach, sky was in my brain. Watch it, you’ll see.