Toronto’s The Beaches returned to Victoria for the first time in a little over a year. Their last show in the city was a headlining set at the Phillips Tilt festival in July 2022. Monday’s show at The Royal Theatre sold out months ago and most of their ‘Blame My Ex’ tour is also sold out due to their exponential rise in popularity this year partially due to a viral TikTok video.
This was the sixth time The Beaches have been on the island in six years and was the final show of the Canadian leg of the tour. Each show they’ve performed here has shown how much they’ve come into their own over their 12 years as a band and is another reason why they’re now selling out multiple shows in Europe and the United States.
The audience in The Royal Theatre were on their feet the moment the band stepped on stage.
They kicked off the show with ‘Kismet’ and ‘T-Shirt’. During the moment of infamous lyric “itty bitty titty committee” guitarist/keyboardist Leandra Earl came over to lead singer Jordan Miller and with her back turned put her hands over Miller’s chest for a playful photo moment.
Music from their ‘Blame My Ex’ was introduced for song 3 in ‘Me & Me’
For song 7, Jordan Miller invited Beach Weather bassist Reeve Powers to perform ‘My Body ft Your Lips’ and frontman Nick Santino came on stage to sing the second verse. It’s a song that actually features Beach Weather on the album.
Drummer Eliza Enman-McDaniel would take a short break while her bandmates performed an acoustic version of ‘If a Tree Falls’.
“This is the first song I wrote after I got broken up with,” said Jordan Miller before the song. “And while it comes a painful experience, I really don’t regret anything that happened because it got us here with all of you. So we wanted to strip it down to make it really emo for you tonight.”
Miller’s breakup and single status was a recurring theme throughout the concert.
After slowing things down for a song, the show picked back up with Leandra Earl taking a turn at lead vocals performing ‘Kinkade’
They closed out the main set with ‘Blame Brett.’ Coincidentally, the Brett that the song is about (Glorious Sons frontman Brett Emmons) was in Victoria days prior headlining a show at Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre.
The Beaches performed a two-song encore starting with ‘Edge of The Earth’ and ending the show with their 2017 debut single ‘Money’.
Beach Weather opened the night with a stage decorated with palm trees and plants and circular rugs. Much of their music you can picture yourself driving in a convertible with the top down along a beach road. The band performed an 11-song opening set. During one song of their show, they had their tech play a saxophone solo from front of house.
Early on, lead singer Nick Santino declared it felt like they were performing at a school assembly after noticing most of the audience was sitting in the the theatre seats. By the end of their breakout hit ‘Sex, Drugs, Etc.’ Beach Weather received a standing ovation. Before performing it, Santino said, “This last one is a very special one for us. It kina got us out of retirement and made us do the whole thing again.”
Beach Weather had taken a five year hiatus until 2022 and then ‘Sex, Drugs, Etc.’ was another song that grew popular on TikTok which led to it becoming a hit six years after the song’s initial release.
Monday’s concert was presented by Live Nation. Our full gallery of photos from the show is below.
