Concert Review: The Beths Flex Power-Pop Chops at Sold-Out Beachland Gig

The years The Beths have spent on the road have treated them well.

The New Zealand road dogs, which have played Cleveland and Akron multiple times in recent memory, have honed their power-pop rock sound into a powerful force. This was on display during their show Saturday night at a packed Beachland Ballroom.

The last time I saw The Beths was at the same venue in 2019, at a co-headlining show with Bad Bad Hats. Since then the band has released two more albums, including last year’s Expert in a Dying Field, and continued to tighten up its instrumentation and trademark harmonies.

It also amassed an ever-growing fanbase (which includes former President Barack Obama, who included a song on this year’s iteration of his summer playlist) because of memorable hooks and sharp songwriting. The band, which squeezed in a few headlining shows while on a run opening for The National, sold out the Waterloo venue.

“It’s good to be back in The Land,” guitarist Jonathan Pearce said.

Walking onstage to an electronic version of “Future Me Hates Me,” The Beths (which had already worn funnily poor disguises as roadies setting up their own equipment) launched into the regular rocking version of the same song. From there it treated the crowd to an 18-song set, with healthy helpings from each of its three albums.

Frontwoman and guitarist Elizabeth Stokes steadily led the group through strong versions of songs such as “Silence Is Golden” and “I’m Not Getting Excited.”

Other songs like “Jump Rope Gazers” gave Pearce time to shine with guitar solos, and the whole set was ably held together by bassist Benjamin Sinclair and drummer Tristan Deck.

“Whatever,” with its tight harmonies, was also a set highlight, as was new song “Watching the Credits.” The show was evidence that their ability to write one crowd-pleaser after another shouldn’t be taken for granted. While many bands use filler to pad their albums, The Beths proved on Saturday that even deeper cuts such as “Acrid” are worthy of praise.

The band also showed that it’s one of the best power-pop bands going, with their sound and prowess occasionally bringing to mind Cleveland’s own the Raspberries.

The band closed the 80-minute show with “Little Death,” still one of its most popular songs. Given the response to that and the rest of the set, it left me wondering if this was the last time we’ll see the quartet play a venue this small in Northeast Ohio.

Opening band Disq was heavy on stylistic twists and turns. Nearly every member of the Madison, Wisconsin-based quintet took a stab at lead vocals as the band energetically shifted from indie rock to noise to something resembling ’90s alternative rock during a 40-minute set.

The bummer, however, was that the songs weren’t as memorable as the musical whiplash.

Setlist:
1. Future Me Hates Me
2. Knees Deep
3. Out of Sight
4. A Passing Rain
5. I Want to Listen
6. Head in the Clouds
7. When You Know You Know
8. I’m Not Getting Excited
9. Less Than Thou
10. Watching the Credits
11. Change in the Weather
12. Jump Rope Gazers
13. Acrid
14. Whatever
15. Silence is Golden
16. Expert in a Dying Field
Encore:
17. Just Shy of Sure
18. Little Death