Music

Review: Best Coast mesmerize the crowd at The Great Hall

by Ciaran Thompson

Some have callously lumped Los Angeles-based band Best Coast into the category of surf rock and while they do possess some very hooky pop melodies, anyone witnessing their performance last night at the Great Hall in Toronto might have a change of the aforementioned opinion.

Opening bands Demon’s Claws and WOMEN both pleased the audience with their upbeat distortion, but it wasn’t until angel-voiced Bethany Cosentino from Best Coast took the stage that the audience was truly ensconced in the sound. “Does anyone know the score of the Celtics/Lakers game?” she asked up front. A few folks in the crowd muffled some sort of score in favor of the former and in response, Cosentino honored her hometown city with, “well, fuck that shit.”

After a couple of new tracks from their forthcoming album entitled Crazy For You due out this July, the band delved into their EP’s and singles back catalog, starting with “Sun Was High (So Was I).” For this track, the summery surf-like pop that the band was previously labeled as playing was replaced by a massive wall of sound from Cosentino’s guitar. Other band member Bob Bruno on lead guitar provided the band’s more melodious part of songs, but still, both guitars were turned way up last night. Despite the loudness, Cosentino’s vocals were still easily heard and that’s what makes Best Coast so endearing.

Periodically throughout the set, Cosentino again asked the audience about the score of the basketball game before launching into another heavy sounding tune with soulful lyrics. The performance of the song “Make You Mine” might have been the best of the night. A bit of a slower number about someone’s anguish over wishing that special someone was theirs, people could have started slow dancing in the crowd and it wouldn’t have looked out of place. Right before the band played a somewhat newer single in “Our Deal,” the singer admitted to having some throat problems and labeled herself as sounding Lindsay Lohan-like when she talked. While that, sadly, was true, once strumming and standing up to the mic, Cosentino’s voice changed to a thing of beauty, completely mesmerizing the crowd.

As part of the announced last string of songs, the band performed the track “When I’m With You,” an obvious standout and the crowds reaction to hearing the first guitar chords was an obvious example of that. They finished with the number “Something In The Way,” another previous single, and the 45 minute set vanished in what seemed like an instant. The audience’s appreciation for Best Coast was shown in a series of high fives given to Cosentino as she was packing up her gear.

Definitely one of the best band’s to emerge from the past couple of years and with their upcoming full-length release due out soon, it would be no surprise to see them in bigger venues and maybe even some slow dancing in the audience the next time around. The Lakers won by the way, 83-79.

Photo by Ciaran Thompson