The Beths were the first band I ever reviewed, playing The Hollywood Avondale to a predictable crowd of lefty, lanky Grey Lynn dwellers and Wine Cellar regulars, and they absolutely blew me away.
On the night The Beths are greeted to joyous applause. There’s a lot of love in the room and Liz, nervous as she is, dishes out her signature stumbling stage banter with gratitude. Their first single ‘I’m Not Getting Excited’ rips through the heartwarming fuzziness of their welcome, and the mosh is as lively as one can expect from an enthusiastic flock of Green party voters in their late 20s at 10pm on a Friday night. Once again, The Beths are on form.
I hold my reservations carefully. Their sound is faultless, the atmosphere is lush, and everyone in this room is having a blast, but I feel as though I’ve been here before. I teeter on the edge of judgement before I’m flung from the cliffside by the familiar peeling guitar riff of ‘Whatever’ from their freshman LP ‘Future Me Hates Me’.
In the moment, I feel like I’m back at The Hollywood. Back in a time before COVID-19 lobbed a spanner into the churning cogs of our social networks, before the fascist grip of the US police state set Minneapolis ablaze with anguish and revolution, before Hong Kong was wrenched from its citizens and tossed into the tumbling vortex of state surveillance and governmentality. Before it felt like the world might never be the same.
But in that moment, I realised that what really mattered hasn’t changed. We still love, celebrate, dance, and make the most of every moment we can. We can hope that The Beths bring something new and jagged and invigorating and driving in their future sound. But for now, this show was the perfect way to celebrate what is, in the wake of what has been. (ALI NICHOLLS)
Photography: Connor Crawford