With snow laid thick on the ground, Best Coast brought a good dose of American West Coast sunshine to the Scala in London on Wednesday night. The band, fronted by Bethany Cosentino, ripped through an hour of material including every song on their critically acclaimed debut and a handful of b-sides and E.P. tracks.
After a slow, wonky, woozy set of fifties rock and roll from support act Spectrals, Best Coast injected a good dose of driving indie-pop to proceedings. The trio sounded stripped down with material that was far leaner live than on their much praised debut album, ‘Crazy for You’.
Dressed in military boots, black leggings and a baggy white tee shirt, Cosentino looked every inch the rock star while taking slugs from a Champaign bottle in between songs. The highlights of the set were an aching rendition of ‘When I’m With You’, which was all teenage longing, melodic fuzzed-up guitars and pounding drums, and a surprisingly grungy sounding ‘Something in the Way’.
The band were tight after months of playing live but there were technical gremlins on the night. The vocals were so low in the mix on their song ‘The End’, that it sounded like an instrumental number and the band played the track a second time with the vocals turned up. Shortly afterwards Bethany’s guitar completely cut out and later the lead came out of one of her effects pedals.
But, technical problems aside, the band sounded well-practiced, and urgent with Cosentino on top vocal form delivering spine-tingling oohs and ahhs that harked back to sixties girl pop. They finished their set on their on the aching Spector-esque b-side ‘This is Real’, before leaving the stage and leaving the crowd to trudge back into the still falling snow.
Words by Rob Dabrowski
