Beck

On a Sunday evening about three weeks ago I was sitting in my living room enjoying a mellow end to my weekend with some smoke, a little cold beverage and some music. I was listening to KFM’s broadcast of a live Beck show from the Ventura Theater in Southern California. The set included a lot of cuts from the latest record, Odelay, a short acoustic set and a little bit of material from Beck’s last major-label offering, Mellow Gold. Despite all the commercials injected by the radio station, it was a good show and good live recording.

I listened to the show with anticipation. I knew that in a few short weeks, I would be experiencing what I was only then listening to: the genius of Beck and his band, the sounds of hip-hop, funk, R&B and rock all mixed up with sonic overtones and a party atmosphere. Who could ask for anything more?

Thursday evening our Chico crew pulled out, bound for the flatlands of Davis and its impending rock. Our fearless leader, head-motherfucker-in-charge and pilot of the Shocking.van, got us all to the show at around 8 p.m., just in time to completely miss the opening band. "What gives?" I quipped out loud. "Opening band: 7:15 to 8. Beck: 8:45 to 10:30. It’s an early show and there’s a curfew in Davis, man," responded an apathetic, young, squinty and red-eyed stranger from over my shoulder.

Curfew or not, Davis is a lovely place, as good as any to see a rock show, especially since it is only about an hour away from Chico. Freeborn Hall is a nice place: it sports a stylish entryway, with a few sets of double doors that open up into a cavernous room with a stage opposite the entrance and a sea of people between the two. The floors are hardwood and have raised ledges around the sides for non-active observing. Many of the fans in the hall were young tikes, but that’s the kind of draw Spin magazine’s Artist of the Year gets, and it’s not like the room was a giant pre-school. Beck has a broad fan base and there were a few freaks here and there.

The show started late, at about five minutes to 9. It opened with the band’s DJ taking his place behind the turntables and introducing himself with authority. He was dressed in suave late ’70s clothing, a bandanna hung on his face rustler-style and a cowboy hat topping off the ensemble. He spun and mixed for a few minutes, with the band taking the stage at the end of his turn. The opening guitar and drums for "Devil’s Haircut," the latest single from Odelay, started up as the guitar player introduced Beck to a thousand screaming fans and the star jumped on stage with several funky dance moves. A long-time practitioner of freeze-frame breakdancing, Beck grooved his way up to the front of the stage, grabbed the mike and began to sing.

The second song, "The Little Drum Machine Boy," was a complete surprise. A track on Geffen Records’ Christmas compilation, I heard it for the first time only a few days ago and hearing it live really added to my first impressions of it. After that, the set consisted of a cool version of "Loser" off Mellow Gold and quite a few Odelay songs. As Beck preached that the practice of moshing was played out in 1992, I was beginning to have flashbacks to my couch. I started to get a little worried that Beck was laying a cookie-cutter set on the crowd, using a standard set list that was also followed at the Ventura show only weeks before.

Like the Ventura show (I imagine like many other shows), about halfway through the show, the band took a break and Beck played an acoustic set. The acoustic set was when I started to lose my fears. Beck was loose with the crowd, and comfortable with his acoustic guitar and harmonica rig. He played "Sleeping Bag," "Hollow Log" and "Asshole," all off One Foot In The Grave, an album released on K Records a couple of years ago.

When he asked the crowd what they wanted, someone yelled out "We want some beats!" and he couldn’t deny them. "Oh, you want some beats, huh? Okay," he muttered as he took the strap off of his guitar, and ditched his harmonica on the drum riser. "But I need somebody, a volunteer from the audience to lay down some beats, to beatbox."

Securing a beatboxer from the throngs of fans who went nuts at the prospect of beatboxing for Beck, the rock star pulled two people out of the crowd to be his "Solid Gold-type dancers." But before the music could start, he had to throw the feeble MC back into the crowd because his beatbox skills were weak and he failed the initial trial period. A replacement from the crowd (introduced as MC Lone Wuss) was found and the freak show was on for one song.

After clearing the rabble off the stage, Beck closed the acoustic set with a great solo version of "Truck Drivin’ Neighbors Downstairs," from Mellow Gold. The band returned and powered through a set that included "Readymade" and "The New Pollution." Shining moments were an epic stage rendition of the eclectic "Derelict," with dark lighting and good work on the part of the percussionist, and "Where It’s At," featuring a long break-down section in the middle of the hit.

Arguably, the bast part of the show was the encore. The house lights were out for about five minutes as the crowd clapped their hands and stomped the floor in unison. It was 10:15, and the hall full of worked-up fans was not ready to leave; they wanted that last 15 minutes. On the darkened stage, roadies could be seen scurrying around, making things right after the destruction of the set’s big finish. When the roadies disappeared from the stage, a lone light came on, spotting the DJ stand, the turntables and mixing board. As in the opening of the show the DJ took his place and fired things up, but this was not the same masked, lone DJ that marked the show’s start an hour and half earlier. The new DJ was wearing jeans, a T-shirt and a black ski-mask, and he terrorized the boards. He began mixing cuts from two records, running the bass buzz over them, and then he started to scratch and mix furiously. Fast or slow, he spun the wheels of steel with finesse and prowess. I thought I recognized the sound and I began to wonder. "I know that sound. I wonder if that’s . . . naw, couldn’t be. But he is a white guy who claims Davis as home, and this guy’s . . . naw."

"Hey, man," Chico hip-hop historian Aye Jay grabbed my arm and yelled into my ear, "I’m almost positive that’s DJ Shadow!" I knew it. The sound of the cuts, the use of the Metallica samples, and the tone of the overall product led straight to Shadow, the genius behind Endtroducing, a phenomenal record that is the product of a close study of the vinyl age. After some stage tricks and the most impressive display of DJ skills I have ever seen, Beck and the rest of his band took the stage and finished the show with "High 5 (Rock the Catskills)," an energetic close to a fun-filled show.

One of the best things about the show was that it was on campus at UC Davis. The fact that it was sold out was no surprise, and the crowd wasn’t too huge. However, it’s nice to see a talented act perform a good show in a relatively small venue rather than an extravaganza at a stadium or twenty minutes at a festival. These days, many big name music acts make universities regular stops on their tours. The vibe is free of alcohol and bad drugs, and the venue is accessible to students. It’s a pretty good argument for having shows at a school near you. Hey, isn’t there a university nearby?

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