As much as the Beaches have enjoyed their success in recent years, that success came from a difficult time. Their most recent album, 2023's Blame My Ex, came out exactly a year before their Sunday performance at Rifflandia. It was an album inspired by lead vocalist/bassist Jordan Miller getting dumped by Brett Emmons from the Glorious Sons, followed sometime thereafter by guitarist/backing vocalist Kylie Miller and keyboardist/backing vocalist Leandra Earl getting dumped. Apparently, only drummer Eliza Enman-McDaniel survived this apocalyptic patch unscathed. Most people do get dumped at some point in their lifetime, though, and many of them found this album to be quite healing, sending the band on a journey that landed their sophomore album on the 2024 Polaris Music Prize shortlist.
Whatever timing problems Rifflandia's main stage had been suffering over the previous couple of days were made up for here as the Beaches actually started playing a minute or two early. Opening immediately with their 2024 single "Takes One to Know One" before quickly moving on to "Cigarette" from Blame My Ex and "Fascination" from their 2017 debut Late Show, it was nice not to feel rushed like Oliver Tree did the day before, pleading for a few more songs after his set began 20 minutes late, as most did on Saturday.
I'd seen the Beaches perform a couple times before, and they were excellent both of those times, but something hit me far more profoundly this time around, given my wife left me the previous year. Leading up to their stripped-down performance of "If a Tree Falls," Miller confessed that it was her favorite song from Blame My Ex, the first song she wrote after her breakup, and she seemed to bring that moment back for us in a real way.
Even though there was a lot of bass bleeding over from the rave in the Dome and the rap at the Dinosaur World Stage, the Beaches' sparsely arranged, vocal-driven rendition of "If a Tree Falls" blew past the arguably over-produced album version to break something loose inside me that I'd never experienced at a concert before. I started crying, and I couldn't stop.
It wasn't anything specific in the words of the song that struck me. There was just something so powerful in how they channeled their pain, with Miller putting down her guitar to belt out the feeling, forging undeterred through disparate competing sounds to express something so singularly beautiful and healing, not unlike the finest compositions of HAIM or post-blues Fleetwood Mac. I would continue crying intermittently for the duration of their set.
It wasn't all break-up vibes, though. The Beaches immediately moved from their heart-wrenching take on "If a Tree Falls" into their whistling 2022 non-album single "Grow Up Tomorrow," which provided a similar kind of cathartic carefree pop-rock release as "Young Folks" by Peter Bjorn and John. "Kismet" was a funky disco-fied ditty from Blame My Ex that would have fit perfectly into Sophie Ellis-Bextor's set the night before, and the band humorously sought out a Jocelyn in the crowd to dedicate their as-yet unreleased track "Jocelyn" to. They do have fun, and hit all the big pop-rock stage show moments.
After dropping "Want What You Got" from their 2019 EP The Professional, they lamented that their flight to Victoria happened to be booked up with contestants from the latest season of Canada's Ultimate Challenge, who were reportedly horrible travel companions. The band hopes they all lose. They also mentioned that the last time they were in Victoria, when the Beaches played the Philips Backyard event Tilt in 2022, one of the women fell down and "ate shit" hard.
The feels were clearly being felt this evening, though. Near the end of their set, Leandra Earl said that she'd been having trouble getting out of bed in the morning over the past week or so. She wished well to anyone else who may also be suffering from "lesbian drama," as she had been, but we reminded her why she kept going.
The Beaches employed "Blame Brett" as their big crowd singalong closer to great effect. While the song is hyper-specific, the feeling behind it translates easily to other situations. Certainly, singing along to that kept a tear in my eye until their last note.