“I picture penguins on the horizon”
This was how Liz Stokes explained managing her nerves when playing Mother, Pray For Me.
Mother… is probably not an easy song to play if you’re nervous. It has a lot of lyrics, and two repeating intricate finger picking guitar patterns. But there was Stokes, alone on stage, under the spotlight, singing a deeply personal song about her relationship with her mother, while her bandmates huddled in shadow on the drum riser off to stage left, with crowds of 1,500 - 3,000 fans pin-drop quiet, absorbing every word and note. Stokes may have been nervous, but you wouldn’t know it from her performances - over 6 shows, I only saw Stokes slightly trip over the words for a split second once.
But anyone who’s been lucky enough to see The Beths over their career would not be surprised at the skill or level of performance. The current line up (Stokes on guitar and vocals, Jonathan Pearce on lead guitar/background vocals, Benjamin Sinclair on bass/background vocals, and Tristan Deck on drums/background vocals) has been playing together since 2018, and fit together seamlessly. Whether its the herky-jerky new wave of “No Joy”, or the call and response vocals of “Little Death”, there are no missed lines, beats, or poorly deployed recorders.
[The recorders probably deserve their own discussion. The band handed them out to fans at their August record release shows in NYC and LA, and tried to teach us their part in No Joy. The result was…let’s go with…cacophonous. So Deck built the “recorder deployers” in order for Sinclair and Pearce to get their recorders in time without having to stop playing their instruments. These are creative people.]
"an excellent joke that's gone down like a ton of bricks”
One of the highlights of any Beths’ concert is the on-stage banter. Every show involves a pass-the-mic band introduction segment, where the members will go off on whatever random tangent they feel like for that day. On the second night at in D.C. for example, Deck spent his time talking about how great the town is for learning about country flags, and then introduced Pearce, who quipped: "Turns out that if you spend 100% of your time with someone who knows all of the flags, you don’t need to know any flags." Sinclair one of his times on mic talking about a statue of a man riding a mare, but with large stallion genitalia. During the 2nd night in Philadelphia, Sinclair pranked Stokes with a lime, distracting her from the banana shaker she uses during Best Laid Plans.
band signed banana shaker from D.C.
There’s a real “you have to have been there” for this stuff, but trust me, the juxtaposition of lighthearted fun with the quality of the song performances leaves you emotional, but smiling in a way that a lot of bands can’t balance. The band obviously gets along off stage as well, as you can see in Sinclair’s fun and cheeky road-diary blog, and the band’s recording and tour diaries.
But ultimately, we’re at these shows for the songs, and The Beths have a lot of really great, songs. The set list for this tour pulled heavily from the new Straight Line Was a Lie album, which, admittedly, wasn’t an immediate hit with some of the band’s fans. The songs are still catchy as hell, with tons of the harmonies and the image-creating lyrics Stokes is known for, but some of the songs play with tempos and atmosphere in ways that push the band’s sound.
Live, however, most of these songs came across as electric, even the acoustic ones. The title song opened the show, with 4 part harmonies, and a simple verse/chorus/bridge, demonstrating the song’s message of health struggles through the repetition of the musical structure. No Joy springs the recorders on the crowd right away. Metal is the first chance for Pearce’s 12-string electric to drench the audience in jangly goodness. Best Laid Plans has a Talking Heads-ness, and Liz’s banana shaker percussion [which I happily played along with in D.C.]. Roundabout has a giddy “Here Comes the Sun” guitar lick, and is maybe the best love song of recent memory.
“never change…unless you do…unless you want to”
[As an aside, I wonder if the band realizes how much Roundabout is going to mean to its fans, especially the in-love ones. It was technically rotated in the set every other night with another new song, Ark of the Covenant, but every show I was at had fans calling for it, even bringing signs for it. At the 1st Philadelphia show, because of a fan request, the band played it in the encore instead of the normal song in that slot. They also added it to the set for a newly-engaged couple in Boston. When it was requested in D.C., Liz kinda rolled her eyes like “oh no not again.” They’ve created a gorgeous monster. ]
“tell me a secret so I can erase it”
But my personal favorite of all the new songs is Take. The single encore for most of the tour, it’s a definite deviation from the bright guitars and harmonies that made the band’s reputation. Sinclair’s fuzzy pulsing bass, and Deck’s almost dance-y drums power the song forward. Stokes takes a rare guitar solo, bouncing around the stage, burning through a repeated note over and over as it becomes more distorted and wailing. The lyrics are obtuse, moody; the background vocals are short yelps, almost harsh. It’s a dark song to end the show on. It gives me chills. It’s my favorite song of 2025.
The Beths didn’t ignore their previous songs, of course. The first 3 proper albums were all represented. Silence is Golden rocked, with its stamping snare beats, spider-y riff, and crowd participation. Little Death and I’m Not Getting Excited show that Stokes right hand down-picking is up there with Johnny Ramone and James Hetfield (I’m not being hyperbolic) and Peace can shred a solo when he wants to. The middle of the set contained 2 slots for rotating fan favorites, like Your Side, Dying to Believe, and Out of Sight. They all rock, but Knees Deep and Happy Unhappy from the final show were personal highlights. Stokes gets a lot of the attention, for good reason, but Pearce, Sinclair, and Deck all get chances to really show off during the show.
For the December shows, the band added its cover of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, complete with Pearce’s call for everyone to “air guitar” along with the solo (I don’t think people did), and a return of the recorders (which I don’t think were in the Judy Garland original).
“a recipe of fortune and time”
I was lucky enough to see the last 5 shows of the tour - Brooklyn NY, 2 shows in Philadelphia, and 2 shows in Washington, D.C., and also the NYC record release show in August. As I get older, I go to less shows, but The Beths are one of the few bands that I will not miss unless I have a really good reason. It’s cliche to talk about the power of live performances in the world of digital music, algorithms, and the oncoming glut of AI slop music.
But The Beths really do it right, and live up to the hype (and there is a lot of hype). Their music is the stuff you want to share with other people (trust me, read the link). They write catchy songs, with musicianship, harmonies, and lyrical meaning. They record them with thoughtful engineering, creative production, and an attention to detail. And then they bring that focus to the stage, layer it with some silliness and good-natured fun, and give you more than your money’s worth. The world is full of a lot of really terrible shit right now - I’m glad The Beths are here to make it joyful, if only for 90 minutes at a time.
The Beths may be coming back to North America in summer/fall 2026. They are currently scheduled for 1 festival show, and it probably doesn’t make sense to fly across the world just for that. Whenever they do come back, I highly recommend you grab your banana shaker, and check them out. And if you can’t, when possible, the band’s sound technician Gabe might stream the shows on Instagram.
All photos by me (and if the band is looking for a tour photographer…)
The Beths music can, and should, be purchased on bandcamp.