By Emy Takinami<\/i><\/p>\n
The first song on Beirut\u2019s impressive 24 song setlist was \u201cWhen I Die\u201d off their new album, Gallipoli<\/em>, released just two weeks prior to the show. Zach Condon, Beirut\u2019s frontman, claimed through his lyrics, \u201cI promise that I\u2019ll get it right\/I\u2019ve been practicing my whole life,\u201d which isn\u2019t far from the truth for the musician who\u2019s been playing trumpet since he was a high school student in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Between dropping out of high school at 17 to travel the world and explore music to standing on stage at the House of Blues 16 years later, touring for his 5th studio album, it\u2019s easy to see that Condon has indeed been practicing his whole life. Whether he gets it right or not depends on whether you believe Balkan folk, Mariachi Mexican, and electronic pop music are fit to blend.<\/p>\n Whether or not you believe the phases in Condon\u2019s career that make up those mix of genres should mingle, the setlist did just that. Each song fused and flowed into the next, from \u201cFener\u201d to \u201cPostcards from Italy\u201d to \u201cAfter the Curtain,\u201d until we were left with one long, homespun, nostalgic pop song. The band performed under barebone stage decor, consisting of a wrinkled off-white sheet used as a backdrop to the numerous mic stands on stage. Pulsing colored lights shifted the tone and mood throughout the night, which started off with energetic flashing bright reds and oranges, later transitioning into darker blues and greens of the ocean. This set the mood for their performance of \u201cThe Rip Tide,\u201d which broke up the pop melody with recognition from an audience, who ironically perked back up to the soft and melancholy lyrics, \u201cI feel alone\/Feel alone, now.\u201d<\/p>\n As always, Condon switched from instrument to instrument, between and during songs, starting with his six string ukulele to the trumpet to the synthesizer.\u00a0 Condon shared a short anecdote on stage about his band members barring him from bringing an old large drum machine on tour.\u00a0 He sheepishly laughed while noting, \u201cI\u2019m attracted to breakable toys!\u201d I had the pleasure of standing right in front of the trombone player, Ben Lanz, who synchronized every note with the band\u2019s trumpet player Kyle Resnick. On keyboard was Aaron Arntz, who doubled as the band\u2019s accordion player. The only members sticking to one instrument were drummer Nick Petree and bassist Paul Collins, who quietly held down and maintained the set throughout the night.<\/p>\n The show confirmed that Condon indeed got it right, not shying away from his own sound and confidence as he may have done in earlier versions of himself.\u00a0 At the end of the show, he came out on stage, on his own, for the encore, \u201cUn Dernier Verre (Pour la Route),\u201d a throwback from Beirut\u2019s second studio album, The Flying Club Cap. <\/em>With only his ukulele and voice on stage, Condon sounded exactly like someone who had been practicing for this moment his whole life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Emy Takinami The first song on Beirut\u2019s impressive 24 song setlist was \u201cWhen I Die\u201d off their new album, Gallipoli, released just two weeks prior to the show. Zach Condon, Beirut\u2019s frontman, claimed through his lyrics, \u201cI promise that I\u2019ll get it right\/I\u2019ve been practicing my whole life,\u201d which isn\u2019t far from the truth […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15726,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1525],"tags":[673,202],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3733"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3733"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3733\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3737,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3733\/revisions\/3737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}