Beck at Madison Square Theater 10/18/06

Beck at Madison Square Theater 10/18/06


On the way into the theater at Madison Square I realized that this would be the fifth time I have seem Beck and except for a clunky show at the beginning to the Midnight Vultures tour when some of the bugs weren’t worked out in the technical end of the staging, Beck’s performances are always superb.

This night’s show began when the lights went down and the audience roared. Instead of the band taking the stage a video began to play that featured marionette puppets of the band members seeming to sing Beck’s early hit “Loser.”

About half way through the song the real band members took the stage and completed the tune. Once the stage was lit I realized that at the back of the stage was a small puppet stage where the marionettes, all dressed like the musicians onstage were mimicking the live performance. Meanwhile instead of the performers, it was the puppets that were projected onto the video screen. The actions and all the stage setting were copies meticulously throughout the night, adding a level of humor to the entire concert.

Beck started the night by tearing through a short set of popular favorites that included Devil’s Haircut, Black Tambourine, and Mixed Business. The band was so tight they were able to be loose in the way great funk bands can be. Many of the musicians played multiple instruments and moved around the stage to different instruments. While Beck’s performance was a bit low-key, the band members were high energy throughout the entire night.

Adding to the spectacle was the geeky male dancer in a white button down shirt and black tie who brought a Napoleon Dynamite feel to the show with his over-exaggerated 80’s dance moves and misplaced confidence.

After the short set of hits Beck broke into a long selection of tracks from his album The Information which was only released and few days earlier, and was unfamiliar to most of the audience. While the new material maintained Beck’s usual melodic pop sensibility, it also bounced between noisy assault and spacey ambiance. The lyrics seemed a bit heavier than one might expect after the lighthearted Guiro.

As he continued to play songs unfamiliar to the audience I began to think about what an artist asks of an audience when they focus on new material instead of old hits. Michael Jackson would not play any songs from the albums he was touring to promote until the song reached the top 10 as a single. On the other hand when David Bowie vowed to quit playing his hits and greeted fans with a concert’s worth of challenging music from his Outside album, although a lot of fans walked out I found it to be one of the most exciting concerts I ever experienced.

As the show came to an end he began to pepper the new music with favorites such as Where It’s At and The New Pollution. As with every Beck show there was a short acoustic set that dug back into his catalog for the bluesy One Foot In The Grave and a percussion filled version of Tropicalia from the Mutations CD. The acoustic set was loose and playful. At one point doing bits of old country songs and singing “we don’t know the words” when they stumbled on the lyrics.

When the show came to the end, after a few cheers for an encore the video screen came back on and a hilarious short film where the puppets traveled through the streets of New York and returned to Madison Square to trash Beck’s dressing room. This lead the real band back into the stage. This time Beck and another band members were costumed in brown bear suits and began to wrestle on the stage, knocking down one of the drum kits in the process.

As always with Beck, excellent musicianship is matched by innovative performance and Dadaistic humor. He always keeps it fresh and always has a surprise or two.