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Beck Showcase
He is B(e)(a)ck and has a new album out called Midnite Voltures. Beck Hansen was in Amsterdam this weekend to do an EXCLUSIVE SHOWCASE and ofcourse TKMYL was there to report on the man's new music and the toilet paper wrapping event...
Tekst: Ariën Rasmijn
Publicatiedatum: 19 november 1999
Felix Meritis, Amsterdam (Holland), November 19th, 1999
A small theatre, somewhere in the canaldistrict of Amsterdam set the stage
for an exclusive showcase, annex radioperformance by the man many see as one
of the most important artists of the past decade, the wiry and petit Beck
Hansen. And exclusive it most certainly was, no more than fifty people
representing Amsterdam's Rock and Roll Upper Crust got in. And then TKMYL
and a couple of lucky radiocontest winners. For some
reason the amount of free tickets that was to be given away was restricted.
The result was a small, desperately half-empty theatrehall that was getting
ready to witness an expensive piece of topnotch entertainment. In other
words: quite a waste. As if nobody really knew, believed or cared that Beck
was really coming to play. Or like actually having him come over with his
entire band (brass-section, back-up singers, masks and all) to come play at
your close-friends-only birthday party. Yeah, we all may have fantasized
about it at some point in our lives, but I can tell you that in reality it's
more awkward than cool. Add free drinks and a couple of celebs
into the mix and you'd think you were on the set of Fellini's La Dolce Vita.
Yeah, so maybe it was cute (...for about 10 seconds...) to rub shoulders
with the beautiful people, in the final analysis there's no way to justify
such a small crowd for such an act. There just isn't. If it were Beck in
lo-fi mode it would be a completely different story. But this time he was
set on Vegas Funkmeister, complete with 10-piece band, which required
reciprocal energy from the crowd for it to really be able to tear the roof
off.
But Beck and his funky pals were pro's all the way. Small crowd or not, they
managed to rock the house in style. It was a good ol'fashioned Soul Revue
like Prince used to do back when he was a cokesnorting bachelor, which in
turn brings Sly Stone and James Brown to mind. Tight, well rehearsed and
timed performance of the band, and kudo's to that kickass new drummer. And then
there was Beck showing off the surprising range of his falsetto on the new
track "Debra". In funkiness he seems to have picked up where he left off on
Odelay, only this time with more Old School twist to it. Other than that he
hasn't changed too much. There still was that 10 minute explosion of onstage
noise, chaos and destruction after the last song including a Beck being mummified in toilet paper.
Visually it's the same trick from the Odelay-tour, only this time more consistent with the Midnite Vultures motif on the cover of the album. The costumes were sleazy, the backup-singers even sleazier. The postmodern tongue-in-cheek attitude got a more devious, surrealist feel. But in such a small setting the contrived mechanics of it all became painfully visible. All I could think of in between songs was of an interview in which he said that he doesn't consider his Odelay/ Midnite Vultures-stuff as more than a job. His heart apparently lies more in his singer-songwriter material. Hey, were we being cheated here?!
But despite all this, plus the short duration of the show (45 minutes) and the easy choice of songs (more hits than new songs, which I guess had to do with the fact that it was aired on the radio), this gig, apart from rocking well from top to bottom, most definitely heightened my curiosity for the new album. The little we got to hear of it was convincing enough for me.
http://www.kindamuzik.net/achtergrond/beck/beck-showcase/488/
Meer Beck op KindaMuzik: http://www.kindamuzik.net/artiest/beck
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