Oh what a treat! To see Beck in such a small intimate venue! When I got word that he was playing there, I nearly pissed myself. In all my years, I’ve never actually seen him live. Although in the interest of full disclosure, I really didn’t consider myself a fan of his until probably this last year.
So I placed a couple judicious calls and got myself invited to the show. Score!
So Beck will be opening for the Police on the South American leg of their worldwide tour. To that end, he decided to put on an impromptu little gig at the Echoplex with which to try out his new band. The big news here, for me at least, is Nigel Godrich on keyboard, synth and various other instruments. Although he worked with Beck on several of his albums, I believe this is the first time he has actually played live with him.
And while it was fan-fucking-tastic to see him in such an intimate venue, I think the sound engineers at the club were high on crack-cocaine… For at least the first four songs, I could barely hear Beck, and throughout the entire show he was essentially drowned out by the band, especially the bassist. The show was mostly just the bassist and drummer. But gripe aside, let me tell you about the experience itself…
So let me get French on you all for a second: To me, this show was very much like the Beaujolais Nouveau… The Beaujolais Nouveau is a French wine sold in the fall. It’s one of the first wines of the year to be sold, and was never originally meant to be a table wine. Rather, people drink it as an indicator of what that year’s harvest will be.
In very much the same way, this show can’t be compared to other Beck shows, notably at larger venues. For one, the sound was shit. But that’s totally forgivable. It’s also important to remember Beck hasn’t been on tour in almost a year, and he’s playing with an entirely new band. This show was essentially a warm-up for a much larger world tour.
I’d mentioned I’d never seen Beck live before, and this show was certainly a doozy. They were the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rage Against the Machine, a punk band, a southern rock band, a psychedelic pop band, the Rolling Stones, early Radiohead and a R&B / funk bar band all at different stages of the evening. They really ran the full gamut of styles and variations, all while maintaining a distinctively “Beck” flavor.
The first few songs were staples: “Loser”, “Devil’s Haircut” and various others saw the band just warming up. The stage antics of the bassist, Justin, were quite engaging, and he had plenty of stage presence. It wasn’t until about 4 songs in that the band really started working well as a unit, but once they did, things gelled. I mentioned all those styles because each song truly had a fundamentally different feel to it. We were witness to a dozen or so iterations of what will no doubt be a great tour.
Most impressive was probably the punk rendition of “E-Pro” and the uptempo version of “Paper Tiger”. A few songs (I’d be unable to identify them) had a distinctively Radiohead feel to them, which was odd and yet worked.
Really, I felt we were witnessing the final stage of the creative process. They were trying things out on us before hitting the stadiums; some things worked, others didn’t. Overall this band has a strong rock feel to it, which will make for a great live experience.
If you happen to be in South American while the Police are touring there, I’d highly recommend you catch a show!
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