In a time (deservedly) dominated by pop girlies, the Beaches are here to be our queer rock and roll queens. The Toronto-based four-piece, made up of sisters Jordan Miller, lead vocalist and bassist, Kylie Miller, guitarist, Leandra Earl, guitarist, and Eliza Enman McDaniel on the drums, has been performing together since high school, and their chemistry has only gotten stronger. The Beaches brought their electric guitar solos, powerhouse vocals, and chaotic good energy to The National in Richmond, Virginia on September 27, in a night of dancing and blaming our exes.
After a dreamy set from opener Charlie Houston, the Beaches saunter casually onto the stage, waving and beaming at the screaming and cheering audience. They kick off the show with ‘Cigarette,’ an energetic, percussion-heavy, and horny queer anthem that immediately gets the audience up and moving, setting an extremely high-energy tone for the night.
After playing two older songs, alt-rock anthems ‘Fascination’ and ‘Want What You Got,’ the band pivots to their newest album, with the single girl pop anthem ‘Me & Me,’ another queer dance number ‘Kismet,’ the slower, seductive track featuring Leandra on vocals for the second verse ‘My Body ft Your Lips,’ and the pop-influenced ‘Shower Beer.’
Every single member of the band exudes confidence, charisma, and seductive playfulness; Jordan floats across the stage while she belts out the songs, waving to fans, blowing kisses, and dancing to the beat; Kylie maintains her cutesy, girly demeanor while expertly shredding her guitar; behind her bandmates, Eliza absolutely rocks out on her drumset while singing along to all the songs; Leandra destroys her guitar solos with her sunglasses on, oozing coolness and taking sips of beer between songs.
Though only Jordan and Leandra identify as queer (bisexual and lesbian respectively,) the band has written and performs a good number of queer songs; there’s something for everyone. Most of the audience members are young queer people and younger teenagers with their older fathers, all of whom appear to be having the time of their lives. Though it is not filled of exclusively LGBTQ+ people, the room and the people in it are filled with an air of safety, queer joy, and camaraderie.
This is my third time seeing the Beaches live (I saw them in March on their solo tour and in August when they opened for Greta Van Fleet,) and something that stands out to me this time is Jordan’s vocals. While she has always had a powerful voice with a wonderfully scratchy quality to it, this time, she navigates her higher chest voice with improved dexterity, even incorporating some vocal growls during the pre-chorus of ‘Cigarette’ and the bridge of ‘Want What You Got.’
The Beaches slow the show down a bit for an acoustic version of ‘If a Tree Falls,’ off their most recent album. Jordan sings as Leandra and Kylie strum on acoustic guitars, ‘If a tree falls, I don’t wanna hear it; ’Cause if I don't know, I don’t have to feel it; If I don’t see it going down, then why can’t I just block it out? Watching you fall, and I was nowhere near it; But I heard it, and I hate it.’
While I personally think this song could be excluded from the setlist just because it slows the momentum of the show down a bit too much, Jordan’s vocal performance is touchingly emotive, and Kylie and Leandra’s harmonies compliment her voice perfectly.
The rest of the setlist allows the Beaches’ older songs to shine, like ‘Grow Up Tomorrow,’ ‘T-Shirt,’ and ‘Desdemona.’ The band also plays ‘Kinkade,’ a song that will ‘never be released,’ according to Leandra, who sings lead vocals on the song while getting closer to the fans, performing right at the barricade.
Towards the end of the show, the Beaches play their newest singles, the slightly spooky-sounding anthem that pays tribute to their fans, ‘Jocelyn,’ which is already their third most streamed song even though it was released a mere nine days before this show. Jordan, putting her bass down and armed only with her microphone, dances across the stage like a dolphin (an inside joke among fans,) and serenades the audience, singing, ‘What do you even see in me, Jocelyn? Why do you still look up to me, Jocelyn? You just got your PhD in politics; And I’m just phoning it in.’
The last song the band plays before the encore is their hit single ‘Blame Brett,’ a punchy, pop-rock post-breakup anthem that’s perfect for screaming at the top of your lungs, and that’s exactly what every single person in the room does. On Jordan’s cue, the audience screams in unison, ‘Don’t blame me, blame Brett; Blame my ex; Blame my ex; Blame my ex,’ in what I can imagine is a cathartic moment for Jordan, who wrote the song about her breakup with the lead singer of the Glorious Sons, Brett Emmons.
Amidst the cheers of the audience, the Beaches quickly and briefly run off the stage for a break. Less than five minutes later, all four of them thunder back onto stage to close the show with the beachy alt-rock anthem ‘Takes One to Know One,’ their second most recent single released in July. There’s something incredibly fun, almost inexplicably so, about screaming, ‘Anti-social, maladjusted, noncommittal, can’t be trusted; That’s so us; And everything you do that’s shitty; Count on me ’cause I’ll one-up it,” with 1500 other people. (Blame Jordan’s songwriting skills.)
Ending on an extremely high note, Jordan, Kylie, Eliza, and Leandra spend a few minutes waving and blowing kisses to the fans before disappearing offstage, ending a night full of dancing and screaming our hearts out.
The Beaches never take themselves too seriously, and that’s part of their magnetism. This show felt less like a concert and more like a party with good friends you haven’t seen in a long time. Whether Jordan is taking shooters with fans and serenading them, Kylie is making silly faces to the crowd, Eliza is screaming the words while destroying her drum set, or Leandra is shredding her guitar while winking at the gay girls gathered on her side, you can be sure that the Beaches are having fun, and their chaotic good energy is beyond infectious. They’re THE queer rock and roll girlies, and blaming our exes with them will never get old.
Make sure to catch The Beaches on their ‘Blame My Ex’ tour. Listen to their discography here.
Words By Allyson Park
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