Vinyl Diaries XXII: Beirut

Photo by obo-bobolina

Beirut
Manning Bar
March 5, 2008

This could have been an utter schemozzle. Shuffling onto stage lost in the midst of his eight-piece band, bedecked in a cartoonishly ill-fitting sportscoat, Zach Condon was looking more than a little ruffled, to put it politely. Watching his eyebrows try and find a horizontal as he finally located the microphone, one darting away just as the other was brought into check, it was as though Dylan Moran had taken his place and we were about to be treated to a stumbling run-through of Black Books: The Musical.

A couple of slugs from a silver hip flask - 'Jamesons, the only way to beat the jetlag' and a few mumbled nothings that made less than no sense and all did not bode well. Until...

'Nantes'. Condon the crooner shook the shabby Irish whiskey soaked 22-year-old by those over-fabricced shoulders (helped in no small measure by a fill-in drummer who seemed at times to be the only one holding the whole show together). While singing, Condon thankfully slid into some parallel universe, if not of sobriety at least of comprehensibility.

The twin-ukele urgency leading into 'Brandenburg' took us out of the Francophilic The Flying Club Cup and back to the Balkan whimsy of Gulag Orkestar, with the set travelling fairly neatly between the two with a spattering of pieces from the Lon Gisland EP.

While centring very much on Condon's rich, dreamy voice, it's the thoughtful instrumentation that makes Beirut that little bit special. It's all been done before, and pinches shamelessly from traditions with their own rich history that we're all a bit too short on time to thoroughly explore ourselves, but it's no less fun for it.

There is a risk of such rampant eclecticism and pilferring devolving into mere pastiche, unreconstructed gestures of overbearing irony and knowingness with a wink. But Condon skirts this danger with his unbridled enthusiasm, the collector's glee in the finer points of his obsession. Seeing these broad brushstrokes of influence all brought together on stage was a treat, witnessing the way such simple drum and bass patterns are so cleverly layered with violin, piano accordion and, of course, the brass.

Of such brass, there was no shortage. Condon took to the ukelele a couple of times, but it was the trumpet that got more of his attention. Most songs took advantage of the playing talent available, with neatly-layered combinations of trumpet, euphonium and baritone sax all adding their warmth.

Come to think of it, brass seems to be the new black. In the last couple of months no self-respecting artist/band has toured without a brass section - it's been used to fairly good effect by Sufjan Stevens, Arcade Fire, Bjork, and even Broken Social Scene. Sufjan is probably the only other act where it was quite as essential as it for Beirut. As with his show it's no mere adornment, but weaved into the very essence of the music. It gives it both its drive and its colour and it's nearly impossible to imagine it being left out.

The best thing about it tonight, for these brass-jaded ears, was the way it fizzed rather than honked, slid rather than popped. And the rather sexy baritone sax always makes me smile. Melding with the rest of the ideas floating around the stage, the brassy bits provided rungs by which to follow Condon on his merry, spiralling march.

Whether this march is ascending or descending I'm not quite sure - and I don't know if they are either. Perhaps its neither, and both; Escher writ musical.

Relaxing into this hot air balloon ride across continental Europe, vast green territories dotted with the occasional spire or lake, its a highly pleasurable journey. He might be drunk as a love-sick skunk, but Condon's charms are in the outpourings of his affection, for travel, for music, for life.

Those wondering whether Gulag Orkestar was a lucky strike by a precocious one-trick pony might these days need to reassess. Despite the affection I felt for mournful 'Mount Wroclai' and the nicely complete 'Elephant Gun', one moment right near the end of the first set stood out and gave plenty of hope.

This was 'Scenic World', which started its life on Gulag as a near-throwaway; two minutes of cheesiness slipping along on a lo-fi bossa beat. It was reborn on Lon Gisland, with an all but hidden keyed riff from the original passed on to the piano accordion, taking more of the spotlight. Tonight, however, it had been handed on to the violin, with glockenspiel in support. The sea-scouting, see-sawing trip was slowed to about two-thirds of the pace and all these beautiful, previously undiscovered crevices opened.

While I don't expect these crevices to be re-explored by Beirut - the eternally restless Condon unlikely to give his laurels such a resting - this reinvention did show that these are living works, breathing and growing gracefully and opening up new paths, rather than museum relics destined for the dustbin of musical history.