A place we saw the lights turn low, the jig-saw jazz and the get-fresh flow

I saw Beck in concert last night and had a pretty good time. Beck is awesome. I can't say I'm a fan of Roy Wilkins though. The view from the balcony seating was fine but the acoustics were hit or miss at times. To be fair, it's probably easier for Beck to play there than for other artists. It's a challenge to understand all of Beck's lyrics anyway, and with his crazy techno-tronic beats and screeching guitar it's sometimes hard to tell if it was a bad venue or "normal" Beck.

The last time I saw Beck was in 2002 when he played a solo acoustic show at the Fitzgerald. That was one of the best concerts I've ever seen and seeing this Beck concert made me like that one even more. I knew these would be two completely different experiences. This one was a rock concert, that one was (as the ticket stub said) "An evening with Beck," and was a heavy dose of Mutations and Sea Change.

Going in to this concert I was looking forward to hearing some Odelay and some of Becks hits that came out between 2002 and now. The show itself seemed to go by really quickly, even though he played 25 songs: Loser, Nausea, Girl, Timebomb, Minus, Soul of a Man, Chemtrails, Mixed Bizness, Nicotine & Gravy, Que Onda Guero, Hell Yes, Clap Hands, Black Tambourine, Devil's Haircut, Orphans, Think I'm in Love, Walls, Missing, the Golden Age, Lost Cause, Where It's At, Gamma Ray, Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat (Dylan cover), Profanity Prayers, E-Pro.

Here are my thoughts, and most of them are going to compare the show to the one I caught 6 years ago. Opening with Loser was pretty awesome (I suspected he'd open with Orphans from his new CD). In the middle of the 2002 show he played the opening riff from Loser and then said "wouldn't it be weird if I came to town and didn't play my bigget hit?"... and then he went on to play something else. I thought it was actually pretty funny, but had high hopes to hear "Loser" tonight, and it was nice to get it right away.

Heavy on the Guero. I expected him to play a bunch from his new CD but didn't know how Beck would tie-in all his other work. I was okay with him relying heavily on Guero as I really like E-Pro, Hell Yes, Black Tambourine and Girl. Beck and company busted out a bunch of headsets and started playing the silly noises of Hell Yes and I got really excited to see this live, but it ended up failing. Beck's headset didn't really work and we were left hearing a few beeps and boops and then "Hell Yes!" without getting any of the lyrics. They got halfway through the next song (Clap Hands) before giving Beck a mic that worked. It was a pity this didn't work better because when he busted out a little toy keyboard noisemaker thing in 2002 it was pretty entertaining.

Black Tambourine was one of the highlights of the night. I like the song but what made this was some dude they brought up on stage, dubbed as "the best tambourine player in Minnesota." I don't know if he won a contest or something, but he took full advantage of being on stage with Beck and a tambourine. Wearing a blue jumpsuit, this guy danced around, did rockstar jump kicks, and "dribbled" the tambourine between his legs like a basketball player.

Other than tambourine man, I thought the best series of songs was The Golden Age, Lost Cause, and Where It's At. Beck was ripping through the songs pretty quickly and it was nice to slow down for a second and hear a couple from Sea Change. Every one of Beck's albums has a different feel to it (He pulled songs from 7 or 8 different albums), but the two songs he played from Sea Change really stood out from the rest. You can still feel more emotion in that album than in any other Beck works, which are lyrically awesome, but a lot of times is Beck just F***in' around. I think, due in part to the 2002 concert, that if I had to pick one CD as my favorite I'd pick Sea Change. Though I wish he played Lonesome Tears and Guess I'm Doin' Fine (maybe my most favorite Beck song of them all) instead. And then... BAM! Where It's At! Possibly the funnest song in Beck's arsenal, and coming off the two slower, mellower songs, it was the rock song that rocked the most.

Beck played 6 somgs off of his latest album, Modern Guilt (Orphans, Gamma Ray, Chemtrails, Walls, Soul of a Man, Profanity Prayers). I expected a lot off of Modern Guilt. I like Orphans and Walls, Gamma Ray is fun but nothing too special for Beck. I was surprised that he didn't play the title track Modern Guilt, and a little disappointed that he didn't play Youthless, which I think is the best track on album.

It was good to hear some Nicotine & Gravy in the mix, and I thought E-Pro was a quality closing song, though I think the crowd would've interacted more with Debra as a finale. Speaking of which, Beck really didn't talk much with the crowd. It was pretty much song, song, song, song, one right after the other. This isn't terrible, because I've been to concerts that are the complete opposite. Beastie Boys kept going, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yo, yo, what's up? what's up?" for SO LONG between every song. They really killed the momentum of the show and I kept screaming "Just play a song!" Beck played one cover, Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat by Bob Dylan. In 2002 he did Raspberry Beret by Prince, so he was sticking with the Minnesota thing. I liked the Price cover better, and again, much better crowd interaction.

I wish he played longer, but 25 songs is a good setlist. I was happy to hear more songs live, as only 2 songs from the 25 were played at the 2002 set. Overall, a pretty entertaining show.