My one memory of Beulah was a live show I saw in Toronto when they toured with Mates Of State. To be honest, I was there for the adorable indiepop duo rather than Miles Kurosky and company, but then something funny happened on the way to the forum: Mates Of State got too cute for their own good. More accurately, I got tired of their cuteness, which is probably more a reflection on myself than anything else. Anyways, the married couple weren’t bad, but they weren’t the bundle of energy and spunk and joy I’d hoped they’d be, instead opting to stare lovingly at each other and sing sweetly to one another and the audience.
Beulah has a reputation, like so many other bands do, as a great live band. This is somewhat surprising, considering how carefully-arranged their albums sound. Plus there’s the whole Elephant 6 connection, which has always seemed more like a studio-minded collective; after all, how exactly do you recreate the Olivia Tremor Control sound? Beulah simply takes the age-old formula of “less subtlety, more volume” and adds in just enough of the album elements to make it seem familiar. This means lots of trumpets and, in the case of “A Good Man Is Easy To Kill,” a floutist.
Okay. So where do you find a floutist? Beulah apparently didn’t bother to bring one on tour, or someone in the band dropped an instrument and filled in or something. Anyways, as Kurosky explained to the rapt audience, the band made do until a seventeen-year-old girl started popping up at shows on the tour—Detroit, then Philadelphia, then NYC. It got to the point where the band recognized the girl, and she sprung the trap: could she join the band for a couple of shows? That’s when she revealed she could play the flute, and that she needed a project for art school and thought this would be perfect. As Kurosky introduced the temporary member of the band, the teenaged girl who had been bopping along right in front of me climbed up on stage and grabbed a flute case on the side. And then they started playing this.
It was a great show all around. Kurosky even threatened to kick someone’s ass for requesting “Freebird.” Fun was had by all. But now they’ve called it quits, and it’ll be a sad day for us all—especially flute girl and the guy who yelled “Freebird.”