If your knowledge of indie rock is largely confined to stereotypes and tropes about warbling troubadours fronting giant bands with horns and harpsichords, stay away from Beirut’s upcoming show with Julia Holter. But if you want to get a sense of just how powerful that formula can be, by all means check it out; they’re playing the McDonald Theatre together on Sunday, October 11 at 7 p.m.

Beirut is one of a glut of indie acts, including Sufjan Stevens and Joanna Newsom, who found success in the latter half of the ’00s before going on hiatus for most of the 2010s and re-emerging in 2015. In that time, those artists’ ornate, orchestral style has fallen out of fashion in favor of minimal guitar rock. Beirut’s latest, No No No, is their first since 2011’s The Rip Tide. It’s appropriately simpler and less ambitious than their prior work, clocking in at 29 minutes and featuring less of Zach Condon’s operatic vibrato than usual.
But there are still horns. There’s still an accordion. And Condon still wears his heart on his sleeve, amplifying his emotions to titanic, theatre-sized proportions. Beirut is the sort of artist you listen to if you want the same to happen to your own. If you’re sad, you’ll likely blubber during Beirut, so bring a hanky. If you’re happy, you’ll have the time of your life. If you’re neither, then hey – he’s got some pretty catchy choruses.

During Beirut’s absence, Los Angeles’s Julia Holter has been charting her own unpredictable path through the indie-rock universe. She debuted in 2011 with the experimental but compulsively listenable Tragedy before releasing a series of ornate, arty albums that were increasingly accessible and increasingly acclaimed. Her latest, Have You In My Wilderness, finds her writing poppier songs than ever, and it’s the album most likely to catapult to the same echelons Beirut inhabits.
She isn’t quite there yet, in part due to her academic approach. She’s recorded albums based on ancient Greek plays and ’50s musicals, and the idea that you have to have consumed these esoteric works to appreciate her music might form a roadblock. Certainly, connoisseurs of either of these things (are you reading this, professors?) are sure to appreciate her work. But there are simple pleasures to Holter’s music too, more so than ever on Have You In My Wilderness. If there’s a time to see Holter, why not when she’s in full pop mode?
Tickets $32.50 in advance, $35 door. Doors at 7 p.m., show at 8. All ages. The McDonald Theatre is located at 1010 Willamette Street (at 10th), Eugene, OR.