“Can’t you see now, you’re lost like me. It’s who we are and who we’ll always be,” sang Elizabeth Latham ’16 during The Beagles’ concert in Susie’s last Friday night. These emotional lyrics come from their original song, “Brooklyn Heights,” written by the group this past Thanksgiving Break.
Ian Frankel ’15 founded The Beagles, a student band, earlier this year. The band comprises Frankel on the guitar, Latham on vocals, Charles Stacy ’16 on violin and saxophone, Terrence Xiao ’16 on drums, Will Reid ’15 on bass guitar, Nico Robertson ’15 on guitar and Seho Young ’15 on keyboard.
During their show, the group performed seven songs and an encore piece. These songs included five covers of popular songs and two originals written by the group. One of the covers the group played was “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” by Green Day. Prior to the start of the song, Latham warned the audience that the evening marked the first time the entire group had performed the piece together.
“For songs like ‘Boulevard of Broken Dreams,’ there’s a noticeable change from clean guitar to dirty. The [distortion] pedal [that I used] enables me to switch the tone really quickly and easily,” said Frankel.
Sebastian Bishop ’17, an audience member, said “My favorite piece [that the group performed] was ‘Boulevard of Broken Dreams’ because I am familiar with the song, but it was interesting that they played the song in a different key. It made the song sound very different than what I’m used to hearing.”
After The Beagles played their final song, an original composition titled “Can’t Sit Still,” many audience members begged for an encore. Latham quickly pulled up song lyrics on her phone as the The Beagles launched into an impromptu version of “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor. The song featured a saxophone solo by Stacy, a keyboard solo by Young and the first drum solo of the night by Xiao.
Just moments before their performance in Susie’s, The Beagles performed at the “Green Mashup Event,” in Paresky Commons. This left the group only a few moments to prepare for their second showing of the night.
Young said, “There were regrettably some rough parts in our performance. [For example], we were very rushed in putting together the set, but I think that it was our most emotional and passionate performance yet.”
