It's been a week already since I got to see an artist that I have on the bucket list to see live since the mid 90's. I'm talking about Beck of course. Beck made his first ever Edmonton appearance here at the Jubilee Auditorium to sold out venue.
Starting the night out was opener McRorie (originally from Edmonton), an artist I had never heard of, and now I know why. He is a one man band, who plays the drums on his chest and has some kind of electronic pads on his feet to mimic a drum beat, keyboards in each hand to do the bass and guitar. What a colossal mess this was. I thought it might be interesting, oh, how wrong I was. I managed to sit through three songs, or a mess of three songs. He was all over the place playing snippets of all kinds of songs, none of which sounded any damn good. Ten minutes was enough for me, I bailed and went and had a drink.
McRorie at the Jubilee.
Now it was time for Beck, the place was packed and you could feel the energy in the place waiting in anticipation of finally seeing Beck. Beck and his awesome back up band opened the show with "Devil's Haircut" the first of five songs he did from his Odelay album, which is my favourite album of his. Then into "Black Tambourine" and "The New Pollution" what an awesome way to start the show. Beck had the audience on their feet dancing from the get go. Beck and his amazing band did at least one song from everyone of his albums, that's what I call covering your catalog of music. Even doing a song "One Foot In The Grave" from his pre Mellow Gold album Stereopathetic Soulmanure. And by covering so much music he hit on soul, folk, alt rock, funk and hip hop. His guitar player was unbelievable too. This is one show that never got boring that's for sure.
At one point during the show Beck said "I'm just gonna do whatever I want, is that ok with you" and of course the crowd shouted yes, that's when he broke out into the Prince song "Raspberry Beret", that was super cool, the whole audience sang along with him. At times during the show, Beck's stage presence reminded me of a mix of Mick Jagger and David Bowie with all the quirkiness of Beck.
For the encore Beck played "Where It's At", it was during this song that he introduced his band, with each introduction they played a snippet of a different song, songs by Zeppelin, Bowie, The Cars and Phil Collins. The two hour show was over in a flash. So fucking good. Good times!!!
Beck setlist for Edmonton show.
Beck at the Jubilee Auditorium.
T-shirt.
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