The Beths – Page 2 – My (life in) music lists

Vinyl love: The Beths “Future me hates me”

(Vinyl Love is a series of posts that quite simply lists, describes, and displays the pieces in my growing vinyl collection. You can bet that each record was given a spin during the drafting of each corresponding post.)

Artist: The Beths
Album Title: Future me hates me
Year released: 2018
Year repressed: 2019
Details: Magenta vinyl, 6th pressing

The skinny: I saw quite a few great sets at this year’s edition of Ottawa Bluesfest, some of which surprised me, but none more so than the Saturday afternoon performance by New Zealand’s The Beths. It’s not that I hadn’t heard of them before. I always do my homework before going to music festivals so that I have no regrets about missing bands that I should’ve seen but hadn’t heard of beforehand. The Beths’ debut album (this one) was on heavy Spotify rotation in the weeks leading up to seeing them live but their set was just so great, so fun, and so enthralling, that I found myself heading to the merch tent afterwards to pick up this record. When I found out it was magenta coloured after I opening it up at home, it was just like double icing on the cake. This is one fantastic album and I cannot wait for more material from them to come my way.

Standout track: “Future me hates me”

Live music galleries: Ottawa Bluesfest 2019, day three – Children of Indigo, The Beths, Pup, This is the Kit

(Since I’ll be too busy attending Ottawa Bluesfest over the next week or so to continue with this blog’s regularly scheduled programming, I thought I would do a special ‘live galleries’ series this week to share some pics from some of the sets I am enjoying.)

Entrance to Bluesfest

Artists: Children of Indigo, The Beths, Pup, and This is the Kit
When: July 6th, 2019
Where: Lebreton Flats Park, Ottawa
Some words: You might’ve noticed there wasn’t a post yesterday detailing Friday night’s exploits. There’s a good explanation. The original plan was to attend but when the main reason for going that night, Colter Wall, cancelled earlier in the day, I made the call to stay home, what with the dodgy weather, lack of sleep, early wake up hour the next day, and the country heavy musical content and expected crowds. By my count, that’s four cancellations for this year’s festival, bad luck in its twenty-fifth year. Here’s hoping the bad luck ends there and the rest of the festival runs smoothly.

When I arrived yesterday, nice and early, I still wasn’t expecting crowds in the entrance line so like Thursday night, the temporary barricade maze was more walking than I wanted to do in that heat. So after I entered, I once again headed inside to the Barney Danson theatre where a surprisingly large crowd had gathered to hear an early set by a lovely, local indie folk trio named Children of Indigo. Unlike Thursday, there was no overlap last night so I didn’t have to rush anywhere afterwards and actually got to enjoy some full sets.

Next up was the band I was most excited to see last night, an indie rock trio out of New Zealand called The Beths. If you haven’t heard them, check them out. To my ears, they sound quite a bit like Alvvays and Camera Obscura but with more fuzz. I’ve been listening to their album a lot in the lead up to last night but their performance was so good, it pushed me to pick up a copy of their record at the merch tent.

Just after dinner time, I headed over to the main stage to catch Toronto punk band Pup struggle to reconcile their counter-culture cred and such a huge outdoor audience. They shouldn’t have worried so much as their fans were just as pleased to mosh and pump their fists outdoors as in. I stayed out of the fray and enjoyed the energy from afar. I finished my evening early, back where I started, in the Barney Danson theatre, with British folk songstress Kate Stables, who might be better known under stage name, This is the kit. I had originally thought to stick around for The Turbans, the headliners on one of the side stages, but after drinking a few beers in the afternoon heat, my bed and AC were the stronger calls.