Devotion

If I had to summarize my personal vision of Baltimore in one music video, this would be it. Shopping carts, urban ruin, nostalgia, and sepia tone. What more could one ask for?

I saw Beach House last night. I didn't even know I was falling in love with this band, and by the time I realized it, I was utterly head over heels, all ready to cook them dinner and buy them roses; so go most love affairs, I suppose. There's just something analogous to...something analogous to how, as I said, when Baltimore loves you, it feels like it loves you and only you. When I listen to Beach House, it feels like I'm the only person in the world listening to Beach House, and that feels right somehow.

It strikes me that, years from now, Beach House might very well be one of the bands I associate most directly with my time in Baltimore. Deacon? Sure. Sure to the mess of bubblegum-crazy hipsters in plastic glasses pogoing in neon shades until their ankles shatter. But in a few years, that won't be what I remember. What is Beach House? Beach House is walking to farmer's market on Saturday mornings when most of the city is still passed out, or walking home from some friend's house, which floor you passed out on, in the early mist. Or maybe before that, even, waking up before everyone else after a party, seeing all the people asleep in various degrees of undress on couches, floors, knowing you are the only person who sees the sight, the beams of the clouded sun trickling through the window and over their waxy visages. Or walks through Hampden at 11PM on a weeknight, many hours after all the stores have closed. Or sandwich picnics sitting on the grass in the shade of a full-leafed tree just up from the ravine on a summer afternoon. All the moments you don't--can't--share with anyone else. Sunshine sure, but sunshine in Polaroid, faded. Moments that the world at large doesn't even think exists, but is branded so vividly into your heart you can't deny they happened, even though everyone else seems to think they didn't. Thus is Baltimore.

Man, if I were more sober, I would have less to say about this.

Anyway. The gig. True to popular belief, the G-Spot is hard to find (har har); it was on Falls Rd., but one can't actually get there by walking south on Falls Rd., as it turns into a highway for maybe half a kilometer in the middle. Katie and I must've walked around in the freezing cold for over an hour, not to mention hitching a ride from a guy (he took time out from Lost to drive us) working in some middle-of-nowhere recreational complex we somehow ended up in, before we found it. It was in the side of a sketchy apartment building on a hill near the Mill Center, the one part of Baltimore where all the roads abandon all pretense of sensibility. Sarah left the med school half an hour after we left Charles Village, and arrived maybe 2 minutes after we did.

But once we got there, I simply couldn't imagine seeing Beach House in any other place: the small Buddha statue in an alcove in the wall on the stage, the white walls and turquoise-green projections, everything about the place fueled their holistic, mystical atmosphere, except maybe the fact the place was packed to capacity. Alex and Victoria came out in glossy white outfits; I mouthed the words to half the songs (how could you possibly vocalize the lyrics when Victoria goddamn Legrand is singing them in front of you?). I was so moved; I wanted to cry at some points, such as when Victoria hit the high notes on "Heart of Chambers." I didn't even know why. It's always surreal when Victoria tries to banter onstage; having such an unnaturally beautiful voice really works against you when you try to tell jokes, especially if you have a rather bizarre sense of humor. I really wanted them to play either "Childhood" or "Home Again"; alas, they didn't play either. Afterwards we all piled into Sarah's Corolla, and she drove us home, thank heavens. Well, that's twice I've seen Beach House with Sarah now--I suppose I should be happy?

I just listened to both Beach House albums tonight. There's no real way to finish this, except with Slowdive, but even then it's almost like cheating.