Beach House w/ Zomes
Bowery Ballroom
Tuesday, May 15

Better than: Having to wait two more months to see Beach House perform at Summerstage.

I've never had 500-plus people in the palm of my hand, but I imagine it must be a powerful feeling. Every eyeball fixated on you, every pair of hands waiting for you to stop singing so they can clap. At this point in their careers, Beach House's members should be no strangers to this feeling, yet their sheer charisma makes it seem like a brand new feeling for them. At the Bowery Ballroom—during a show celebrating the release of their gorgeous fourth album, Bloom—the band unleashed sound and fury and a lot of bright lights. As colors faded in and out of sight, seemingly in tandem with the intensity of singer Victoria Legrand, the trio showered the adoring crowd with the music they so desperately craved. There may have been tears from a gentleman behind me, although those might have come because the other half of Beach House, Alex Scally, was ignoring his obnoxious shouts of "ALEX!"

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Lyz Flyntz

Beach House didn't entirely disappear from the cultural consciousness, but they did go hide out for a while. The Baltimore duo of Alex Scally and Victoria LeGrand toured the hell out of their last record, Teen Dream, before heading back home to write Bloom (Sub Pop), which comes out tomorrow. Even their Twitter account (the frustratingly hard to remember @BeaccchHoussse) fell dormant for about a year. After a seven-week recording period in Texas, the band had a hell of a collection on their hands: 10 songs that weave in and out of themes like death, life, and that moment, so very small, of truth.

Whereas their previous release rode a lot of the tailwinds from its standout tracks ("Zebra," "10 Mile Stereo," and the gorgeous "Norway"), Bloom comes at you with the wallop of an hour-long odyssey, charting paths that perhaps you never thought to take. With ideas taken from a long touring period (180 shows since Teen Dream was released!), Beach House has landed on a feeling expressed in song, and a haunting work of art that surpasses even their own personal bests.

Sound of the City caught up with LeGrand over the phone as she rested up in Baltimore before the new-album whirlwind. She spoke about how people forget that the band did not debut with Teen Dream, and how New York can be a rough place to play a show. She also kept bringing up this idea of how important it is for her and Scally to know that they control how their music is being heard by their fans.

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Bowerbirds w/ Dry The River
Bowery Ballroom
Friday, March 23

Better than: A Pink Floyd laser show.

When I walked into Bowery Ballroom late Friday night, I did not expect to be stepping into an iTunes visualizer. Alas, Bowerbirds have incorporated a verifiable light show—complete with Merriweather Post Pavilion's cover-esque mosaics—into their live show. It fits the band's folk-but-not-quite aesthetic almost too perfectly; the music seemed to move its way through the empty dark spaces as if it was designed for the lights and not the other way around. Of course, that is not to say that the music was not top-notch: the band has always been a champion live act (this is my third time seeing them), and adding songs from this year's beautiful The Clearing did not hurt in the slightest.

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Bill Callahan
American Songbook @ Lincoln Center
Wednesday, February 8

Better than: Trying to catch a cab outside of Lincoln Center.

First, a confession: I had never been to Lincoln Center in my four and a half years living in New York City. I was not prepared for seeing this show with a backdrop of Central Park, Columbus Circle, and a good chunk of the New York skyline. I was more wide-eyed than ever before, proving my still-developing New Yorker-ness. In a way, I was like Bill Callahan himself, wondering (him aloud, me inwardly) what we were doing here on a Wednesday night, playing/listening to country songs while staring out into the metropolis's night sky.

Callahan started out on a very strong note, coming out to the best song from last year's majestic Apocalypse: "Riding for the Feeling" is a slow roast, a warm cup of your favorite coffee, enjoyed next to the fire as snow batters your window. His voice was somehow more present and alive than on record, its imperfections strengthening the song's impact. The acoustics in the Allen Room really amplified every note from the dual guitars and the soft drumbeats. It sure helped that every person seemed to be holding their breath; at one point, I swear I heard a piece of paper rustle across the 400-something-capacity room.

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Cloud Nothings
The Studio at Webster Hall
Thursday, January 26

Better than: Whatever sold-out show was going on at Webster Hall proper.

It's rare for a band and a venue to be perfectly suited to one another, but last night at The Studio at Webster Hall the pairing was so ideal, the venue effectively became a fifth member of the Cleveland band Cloud Nothings. It amplified every thundering bass drum kick, every guitar lick, and every shout-sing word uttered by bandleader Dylan Baldi, giving the audience of mostly 20-something dudes an aural experience that somehow tops the band's excellent new record, Attack on Memory.

Where previous gigs focused on the band's pop twinkle, Thursday night's show was gritty from its first song, the ode to idleness "Stay Useless." Some audience members seemed taken aback by the change, as if they hadn't heard the new album before going underground on this rainy night. It didn't matter, however: those same people were headbanging by the end of the 40-minute set. A pleasant surprise for them, I'm sure.

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Luis Paez-Pumar

Sharon Van Etten
Mercury Lounge
Wednesday, January 18

Better than: Standing outside in that unbearable wind.

It's almost a New York City cliche at this point, but it holds up: there are few things better than tucking into a warm venue on a cold night in the city. It creates a sense of longing for more songs, more encores, more seconds enveloped in notes rather than winds. Last night at Mercury Lounge, Sharon Van Etten provided the warmth that the packed crowd of 250 so very badly needed.

One of the better features of Mercury Lounge is that the stage is low enough for the crowd to be almost level with the performers. (The playing field's even more level for those of us who are a bit taller.) This allowed Van Etten to keep a bit of banter going with the crowd, and to flash smiles at various audience memers—light touches that should not be underestimated, especially since she sings with a determined, almost trance-like demeanor. Between songs, she's a populist singer, worried about her self-described clumsiness and her audience's enjoyment. During songs, however? A meteor could crash into the venue and I'd be willing to bet that she finishes.

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Eleanor Friedberger
(le) poisson rouge
Saturday, November 20

Better than: Any wedding you'll ever go to.

There's something very romantic about the casual messes that Eleanor Friedberger's protagonists get themselves into, and that romanticism is particularly evident on "My Mistakes," the first song during both her set on Saturday night and her debut solo album, Last Summer (Merge). A remorseful tune at heart, the track manages to avoid defeatism by pairing it with the strongest tool in the singer's arsenal: her talk-sing vocal style. By removing the long, drawn-out, "woe is me" vocals so prevalent in regretful tunes, she sidesteps sad-sack emotion and moves straight into insightful observation. Detachment works quite well when you're selling optimism.

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Jake Moore

Bon Iver w/The Rosebuds
Celebrate Brooklyn! at Prospect Park Bandshell
Wednesday, August 10

Better than: Going it alone.

The now nine-member collective known as Bon Iver has certainly evolved from its oft-retold cabin origins. At Prospect Park last night, the band showed off their chops with a live set as full-bodied as the electric guitars wielded by its lumberjack (that's what we call him, right?) leader. From the first song, the gorgeous "Perth," the change from a-man-and-a-guitar to holy-crap-rock-and-roll was apparent: when the song's intermission turned from a marching drumbeat into a full-on wall of sound, it covered every inch of the vast bandshell with electric goodness. And that was only the beginning.

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Animal Collective w/Black Dice
Celebrate Brooklyn! at Prospect Park Bandshell
Tuesday, July 12

Better than: Sweating at home alone.

Animal Collective has usually been categorized by its two primary creative forces: Avey Tare and Panda Bear. Sure, Deakin and Geologist are important (and perhaps more important than the other two if you're only talking about the live show), but it's not uncommon to judge a group by its singers. Normally, Avey and Panda split vocal and lyrical duties; however, at last night's Prospect Park Bandshell show, the sweaty crowd was treated to the Avey Tare Experience, Featuring Three Other Dudes. This is not a bad thing: Avey's aesthetics, both lyrically and vocally, translate to the live setting better than Panda's woozy drone tracks. But seeing Panda Bear relegated to harmonies and drums was unexpected.

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Panda Bear w/ Ducktails
Music Hall of Williamsburg
Sunday, July 3

Better than: Blasting Person Pitch at home while watching your computer's iTunes visualizer.

That "Better than" section above is not just a joke. On Sunday night, Panda Bear, a/k/a Noah Lennox a/k/a the poppier dude from Animal Collective, turned Music Hall of Williamsburg into a real-life iTunes visualizer, complete with a projected slideshow behind him that played scenes from movies interspersed with ebbing color dreamscapes as well as disorienting projectors that blasted light in the faces of the audience. Lennox's setup was daunting, to say the least; so many wires and pieces of equipment were present that it would not have surprised anyone if they became sentient and killed everyone inside the venue.

Thankfully, Tomboy producer Peter "Sonic Boom" Kember was also on stage, and he helped Panda Bear maneuver the electronics on the way to conducting an hour-long set with precision, efficiency and absolutely no banter; the only words that Lennox said outside of songs were "thank you" and "good night", and Kemper didn't even have a mic in front of him.

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