Electric Moments

Otherworldly band Beach House have gone from indie fringe to arts festival act.

When US dream-pop duo Beach House turn up for this year’s Auckland Arts Festival, don’t expect to see much of the main protagonists.

Sure, Victoria Legrand will be there on stage, with her blissful, billowing vocals and washes of synths around Alex Scally’s pulsating, reverbed guitars, but a Beach House gig is rarely about the performers.

Since their seventh album – helpfully named 7 – emerged last year, they’ve purposefully scripted their light and visual shows to keep themselves in heavy shadow, hidden behind gauze or backlit as silhouettes as a way to keep the focus off them and ensure the audience “feels the vibe of each different song”, as Legrand tells me on the phone from their hometown of Baltimore.

It’s the sort of visual element that’s elevated them from the indie fringe act that played Auckland’s Kings Arms and Wellington’s Bodega in 2008, and twice graced our Laneway Festival stages (in 2011 and 2016), and made them right at home in an arts festival setting.