This is the brilliant Baltimore band Beach House playing an absolutely mesmerizing gig in Vicar Street last year. I hadn’t paid much attention to them before going along to photograph them but I came away a fan. There’s nothing particularly ground-breaking about what they do – there are obvious antecedents to their music stretching from Mazzy Star all the back to the Velvet Underground – but they do it incredibly well and they write fantastic songs.
A really beautiful visual set up and light show really helped my enjoyment of the night. The stage was simply lit, and the audience left in darkness much of the time. Now and again though a curtain of lights behind the band would come on and that’s what I wanted to get in the shot. I misjudged the overall level of light in the venue though and I should have opened up the aperture more than normal to compensate for the dim lighting. I didn’t like the results much when I processed the negatives. Everything was black except for the stage – no crowd visible other than isolated lights from mobile phones now and again.
It was only when looking at this one again a few days ago though that I realised that even though it wasn’t what I intended, it did capture the night fairly well. I think the darkness reflects the reverential atmosphere. It was like being in church – but in a good way. As usual this is an exposure that was the length of the song – in this case about 5 minutes. Here’s a song from their super 2010 album, Teen Dream.
Traces Of The Real 
Wow! Hugh I love this one. The pyramid shaped things look great lit by the cones of light from the background. Negative space works great too emphasizing the stage area.
Thanks Stephen. Actually you might remember being in the Long Hall before Christmas and I was describing this photo to you. You said something about “negative space” and it stuck in my mind ….
Having sat right in front of you for this show, I think the photo is perfect…love how Victoria is silhouetted in such relief, even the tiny glimpse of light on her mic works just *so*. There was quite a lot of light as the show progressed and if you’d had a wider aperture, they probably would have come out a bit blanched. I think you captured the ambience really well.
And funny what you say about church. Teen Dream was recorded in a converted church I believe and I think one of the most affirming things about the live show is that the songs translate so well to stage. So that would presumably be exactly the effect they hoped to achieve.
That’s interesting about the church Nay. The album certainly has that “natural” reverb sound that the Cowboy Junkies got in the same way ….