Beck live!

Beck
Aragon, Chicago
Friday, October 3, 2008

Beck and his four-piece band tore through 25 songs in less than 90 minutes Friday night at the Aragon Ballroom with nary a wave or hello. Stripping away the gimmicks of yore – goodbye marionettes – Beck played it straight . . . really straight. Skewed dance moves nonexistent and with two feet planted firmly on the ground, Beck shielded himself with an electric guitar for most of the evening, channeling Jack White more than his funkmeister self.

The results, in all their no-frills glory, didn’t disappoint, though Beck’s lack of engagement with the audience wore thin. Giant, movie-set lights flanked the stage as if “The Dark Knight” set up shop to shoot a few pickup scenes, but left in the midst of a fire drill. The spotlights only magnified the Californian’s impatience and older tracks were cut short in response. Among the casualties were a lovely, acoustic “Lost Cause,” spurred on by the lilting backing vocals of guitarist Jessica Dobson, and a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it “Mixed Bizness.”

Outfitted in garb toeing the line between Kurt Cobain flannel grunge and hippie pilgrim, Beck raged during a bluesy rendition of Bob Dylan’s “Leopard-Skin-Pill-Box-Hat” and turned “Nausea” into a contender for the soundtrack accompanying the upcoming Where The Wild Things Are film adaptation. The major hits — “Loser,” “Devil’s Haircut,” and “Where It’s At” — retained the spunky grooves that made Beck a household name.

Donning a headset microphone befitting an NFL coach, Beck joined the rest of the band in a line at the front of the stage for an invigorating, all-electronic “Hell Yes.” Contributing old-school record scratching sounds made by turning the wheel on his iPod, Beck stood in contrast to the rest of group and their black-box widgets. Visually, the exercise bordered on obtuse, but it seemed to put a rare smile on his face.

— Janine Schaults

Category: Live Reviews, Weekly