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Beck Basks in Bittersweet Majesty With the LA Phil at Hollywood Bowl Symphonic Show: Concert Review
At the Hollywood Bowl Beck did the second show of a mini-tour with full orchestras, and it provided a gorgeous glimpse of his catalog's quieter half.
There weren’t many of Beck’s more upbeat songs squeezed into the symphonic main set, but the exceptions to that rule were fun — including “Odelay’s” “New Pollution,” which began with a jaunty, almost circus-like fanfare, and “Where It’s At,” where the Phil ultimately let the band take over but added appropriately loud accent marks on the choruses. That choice wasn’t remotely in the ballpark of the two (count ’em) Scott Walker songs he covered, “It’s Raining Today” and “Montague Terrace (in Blue),” or even the “Eternal Sunshine” soundtrack cut “Everybody’s Got to Learn Sometime,” which also rose to the level of sounding like a “Sea Change”-era original. From there, he made a comedy routine of exploring the suddenly empty stage by himself: “Whose chair should I sit in?… This one’s really warm — those violas, they have a lot of body heat.” Finding that the tympani player had taken off with his mallets rather than leave them behind for Beck’s tomfoolery, the singer pulled out a harmonica for an enthusiastically blowsy solo rendition of “One Foot in the Grave,” then had his band rejoin him for “Devil’s Haircut” and “Loser.” (They apparently had one more penultimate pick planned, summarily canceled when they were reminded of a 10:45 curfew.)
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