Beck Live @ the Riviera Theatre in Chicago 9/20/2005
this guy rocked. armed with an old busted hat, and the classic jimmy page black and white danelectro, a slide, a fuzz box, and a harmonica he rocked. this is the first time i saw beck and i have been a fan since mellow gold. he has perfected his art and can play guitar (and turntable too). his band could pull down the "phat" beat and the bluesy-ness was down. he reminded me of the white stripes that i saw a few months ago in that he played a distorted slide guitar for much of the show. a classic gritty guitar at that! at some point the roadies brought out a classic little bistro table with some food, wine bottles, and misc trinkets on that the band stopped playing and came out to sit around and ate at. they ate while beck played a few songs with just him singing and playing guitar on. he actually played some great "sea change" songs at this point and they worked. as a dj i figured this album's songs would kill the party...but he pulled it off and they sounded beautiful. at around "clap hands" the people eating at the table started playing percussion on the various glasses, bowls, trays, and misc scrapers on the table. he suddenly had a full latin beat under his acoustic. truly phenomenal. when he played loser i couldn't believe how corny the song hasn't become! these are the songs, not in exact order..but what was remembered:
- black tambourine
- e-pro
- que honda guero
- girl
- hell yes
- scarecrow
- emergency exit
- clap hands
- deborah
- golden age
- loser
- devil's haircut
- the new pollution
- hotwax
- sissyneck
he was too cool and he had the musicianship it takes to go out by yourself, and play to the crowd with nobody backing u up, and he had us all hyped up. check out his next show u can. 5 out of 5 thumbs.