- 24,344
- Midlantic Area
- GTP_Duke
Last night we went to the Beck show at, well, Tweeter Center near Philadelphia. It's a smallish venue (6,000 seats or so)and while the auditorium is relatively flat in slope, we had pretty good seats and the sound quality was excellent.
The opening act was a Canadian guy named McRorie. I've never enjoyed an opening act more - the guy is a hoot and a great musician in the bargain. He's a one-man band, playing a MIDI keyboard on each hip, with drum pads on shoes and chest. He sings vocals and with a touch he can switch over to an overdriven channel so that he can hum and whistle perfect metal-guitar solos and fills. He's got a huge repertoire of originals and covers - in a 40 minute set he did material from Grand Master Flash, AC/DC, and the Beasties, among others, as well as half a dozen of his own songs. He plays it all live, with no overdubs or prerecording. He was funny and wild to watch as he warmed the place up with a rockin' one-man set.
Beck did a long set - an hour and 45 minutes or so. It was a great great show. He opened with Loser and closed with a long version of E-Pro, neatly capping the popular phase of his career. In between he did material from everything he's ever recorded - lots of known (and obscure) songs from every album, including some stuff from the pre-Mellow Gold days.
He fronted a 7-piece band, including a permanent drummer and bass player (both good, and very tight together). There was a keyboardist who also did some percussion, a rhythm guitarist who also doubled on percussion, a turntablist who was doing some scratch work (as well as mixing and generating the projected background images live), and an all-purpose freak. This guy was as much stage prop as anything else - a weedy little nerd in a shirt and tie, with a beard and glasses, who danced around, did backing vocals and percussion, air-boxed, and generally was just weird all over. Beck himself, I was pleased to note, handled most of the guitar work, as well as some keyboards, turntables, percussion, a harmonium, and the vocals.
They played hard for about an hour, and then the band settled down to a light snack at a dining room table brought on to the stage. During this interlude, Beck played about half an hour of solo acoustic stuff from Sea Change and some slide blues numbers. Then they had an improvisational bit using most of the glasses and plates as percussion, before cranking the band back up to take it out on a high and fast note.
Overall it was a great concert, and well - well worth $40 a ticket.
The opening act was a Canadian guy named McRorie. I've never enjoyed an opening act more - the guy is a hoot and a great musician in the bargain. He's a one-man band, playing a MIDI keyboard on each hip, with drum pads on shoes and chest. He sings vocals and with a touch he can switch over to an overdriven channel so that he can hum and whistle perfect metal-guitar solos and fills. He's got a huge repertoire of originals and covers - in a 40 minute set he did material from Grand Master Flash, AC/DC, and the Beasties, among others, as well as half a dozen of his own songs. He plays it all live, with no overdubs or prerecording. He was funny and wild to watch as he warmed the place up with a rockin' one-man set.
Beck did a long set - an hour and 45 minutes or so. It was a great great show. He opened with Loser and closed with a long version of E-Pro, neatly capping the popular phase of his career. In between he did material from everything he's ever recorded - lots of known (and obscure) songs from every album, including some stuff from the pre-Mellow Gold days.
He fronted a 7-piece band, including a permanent drummer and bass player (both good, and very tight together). There was a keyboardist who also did some percussion, a rhythm guitarist who also doubled on percussion, a turntablist who was doing some scratch work (as well as mixing and generating the projected background images live), and an all-purpose freak. This guy was as much stage prop as anything else - a weedy little nerd in a shirt and tie, with a beard and glasses, who danced around, did backing vocals and percussion, air-boxed, and generally was just weird all over. Beck himself, I was pleased to note, handled most of the guitar work, as well as some keyboards, turntables, percussion, a harmonium, and the vocals.
They played hard for about an hour, and then the band settled down to a light snack at a dining room table brought on to the stage. During this interlude, Beck played about half an hour of solo acoustic stuff from Sea Change and some slide blues numbers. Then they had an improvisational bit using most of the glasses and plates as percussion, before cranking the band back up to take it out on a high and fast note.
Overall it was a great concert, and well - well worth $40 a ticket.
I'm jealous!
