#Colorstour

[whiskeyclonenet-blog]

Beck Colors tour breakdown: “Heart Is A Drum”

circling around your iron will

“Heart Is A Drum” was a pretty solid regular song on the Morning Phase tour of 2014, and then the tours of 2015-2017, as well. However, as they moved into the Colors tour in 2017 & 2018, the song sort of fell out of the lineup. It was done just 13 times of the 59 main Colors shows, and most of those were front-loaded -- it was performed at 10 of the first 18 shows, but then just 3 of the last 41.

Colors tour lineup: Beck Hansen - acoustic guitar, vocals Jason Falkner - acoustic guitar, backing vocals Roger Joseph Manning Jr. - piano, backing vocals Dwayne Moore - bass, backing vocals Chris Coleman - drums (except once, they went drumless) Alex Lilly - keyboards, backing vocals Cecilia Della Perutti - percussion, backing vocals Jake Sinclair - ukulele, backing vocals On the Morning Phase tour, Beck tended to play a slightly sped up version of “Heart Is A Drum,” compared to the record. For the versions I listened to here from 2017-2018, the song seems to have drifted back to its usual pace and leisurely flow. Chris Coleman shows his lighter touch on drums, and Roger Joseph Manning’s delicate piano is always a joy to hear. 

You can hear that here, at this version from Dallas in March:

After this, the song was played far less, as I said above. I did not hear all the versions but I think most were like this.  We did get one the song one time in Boston, the final time on the tour, and the only time on the tour after June. In that instance, Beck played the song in his ‘acoustic’ set, where he had his band crowd around him, creating a more intimate moment. During this set, Beck most frequently did “Blue Moon” and “Lost Cause,” but this one time, he subbed in “Heart Is A Drum.” It remains fairly similar, just that his band is all standing closer to him -- except Roger, whose piano doesn’t travel as well as the ukulele and guitars, and Chris on drums, who sits the song out entirely.  It is nice to hear the song done differently, but I think the drums give the song a pulse it needs, and I miss them here. Anyway, here is that one:

[steffiegraph]

Great concert! #beck #colorstour #anciennebelgique #gotthedevilshaircutinmymind (bij Ancienne Belgique - AB)

[kevindiepart]

Beck at The Royal Theatre Canberra - February 26 2018

(This review could be considered a companion piece to my experience at The Enmore Theatre featuring Ball Park Music, Ali Barter, and some rowdy patrons. That review focuses on the behaviour of a younger crowd and what I learned from that.) It had been seven years since Beck last dropped by Australia, a gap of time so long apparently that he thought to reach out even to his most remote fans in our hometown of Canberra. It’s an unprecedented move by an artist of his caliber. Canberra is usually reserved for artists who have retired from making music and are happy to just play it. I’d consider Beck to still be a super popular working artist. I mean he headlined Sydney City Limits! An offshoot of the very esteemed Austin City Limits in Texas, USA.

When he announced this sideshow I was quick to buy tickets and create my hecknbeck playlist to amp myself up for the following months. One issue that plagued my.mind through the wait was what attendance would be like. Beck is popular but like 90's popular. He's not popular with the Triple J Smith Street Band dawgs of this day and age. His fans from the 90s were now in their late 40s or 50s. That had me a bit worried. I’m not scared of old people, that would be pretty funny. Instead, my worry came from the first experience I had with an older crowd, Sleater-Kinney at the Sydney Opera House, 2015.

Sleater-Kinney is a punk indie rock riot grrrl force of nature formed in 1994. Born in the feminist rock scene of Olympia, Washington, their music heavily relies on the energy of the crowd to strengthen their performance. They speak of equality, mental health, womanhood, motherhood, and sometimes political matters. It’s hard to shout and protest passionately about these subjects this to an audience of sitting ducks. You don’t want to continue if they won’t respond the way you need them to. That was exactly the case in The Sydney Opera House.

      Whatever part we were in, (the main stage/hall? I’ve only been there once) required seating. Standing was prohibited and guards would come and sit you back down if you even tried. The teenagers from the 90s had grown up and we’re now responsible adults who desired to sit down and respect the rules of the Opera House. This means that the respectful fans didn’t move out of their seats until halfway through the show where Corin Tucker subtly called us out. I think Sleater-Kinney, a band of 24 years, would have played to every type of crowd, but unless the artist tells me it’s fine, I always feel bad for them. If you came down from the states to Australia, you’d expect the sold-out crowd to go mad. Nope. I can’t imagine that they don’t feel even the tiniest bit of disappointment. Despite buying a $7 Crown Lager as my first bottle of alcohol, it was a great night and a good gig. Beck to the future now.

If the stiff crowd didn’t worry me, then the attendance certainly did. It was spread out enough for everyone to feel self-conscious and stay still during Meg Mac’s set. She performed well, but you knew everyone there was just waiting for Beck. That was my justification for why they weren’t moving, sure, that sounds believable. Even then, there was this older woman next to me that was dumbfounding. Planted like a tree, she stood her ground and either crossed her arms during Beck or kept them in her pockets. If the song was up to her heaven high standards, she would occasionally join in with us plebs and clap at the end of a song. She was even like this through his most popular songs! The people you find at concerts are great.

Beck came on alone with an acoustic guitar in hand. He engaged the crowd in some small chit-chat and conversation. His comments on an exhausted old man that he passed on a particularly empty Lake Burley Griffin were a highlight of the show. Makes you wonder if you would have recognised a famous artist if they were just walking around the lake too. After this he played a little rendition of Prince’s ‘Raspberry Beret’ and ‘Debra’, sliding in lines referencing this wild ‘Monday night in Canberra’ throughout the song.

In Talking Heads style, he brought out the band one by one and they played through slower pieces from Morning Phase and Sea Change. They were pretty good though I wasn’t very familiar with those songs. After he finished he brought the concert into 'Level 3’ with a biting and harsh rendition of ‘Devil’s Haircut’. This set the mood for the rest of the set as he played hits ranging from ‘Mellow Gold’ up to his latest album ‘Colors’. It was spectacular to see songs of such a different time and culture played with a new energy in a foreign environment. Hearing Beck refer to us as he’s ‘Guero’s’ is pretty surreal. Can’t imagine what it was like for the older fans too. Maybe it reminded them of their younger days listening to Beck. Who knows if when I am of their age if I’ll still be dancing and prancing around with the same energy I have now. A lot can change from now until then. 6 years ago I distinctly remember thinking to myself on a ride back from school ‘Man, I hope I never stop listening to the Red Hot Chili Peppers. They’re so good, I’ll love them forever.’ I was really determined to not be lame in the future but I gave up/forgot somewhere along the way. I still listen to the Chili Peppers though, along with a boatload of new and different acts. I’m definitely not the same person I was back then, nor even three years ago. I can see big changes to myself from last year’s version of me too. I look forward to seeing how I enjoy music in the future. Hopefully with more money and better headphones.

They say your back also hurts a lot in your thirties. That’s probably that main issue.

Setlist:

Everybody's Got to Learn Sometime (The Korgis cover)

Raspberry Beret (Prince cover)

Debra (interlaced with dank Canberra references)

LEVEL 2:

Lost Cause

Say Goodbye

Heart Is a Drum

Blackbird Chain

LEVEL 3!:

Devils Haircut

Black Tambourine

The New Pollution

Think I'm in Love (interpolated with Donna Summer’s I Feel Love )

Qué Onda Güero

Mixed Bizness

Go It Alone

I'm So Free

Colors

Wow

Soul of a Man

Loser

Dreams

E-Pro

Encore:

Up All Night

Where It's At (Beck led the band into an intermission)

One Foot in the Grave

[stereo-live-houston-blog]

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Stereo Live Houston (@stereolivehouston)

This Saturday May 17th @tritonal @parisblohm at @stereolive #COLORSTOUR Prepare to be blown away by their uplifting set! Tickets are selling fast, make sure ro purchase yours at stereolivehouston.com Only a few sections left, reserve your Bottle service section before we sell out by emailing vip@stereolivehouston.com #tritonal#parisblohm#electricglow#followmehome#colors#edm#stereolive#nightculture@nightculture

[kwokpow]

@tritonal was the business last Saturday. #tritonia #bassmnt #colorstour #sosick @karenxduong @meeemss @baarbaraalee @sir_yatik @meiseen +Sao @burnz_and_beez @itstommydude +Sara +long @bassmnt (at Bassmnt)

[whiskeyclonenet-blog]

Beck Colors tour breakdown - “The New Pollution”

pink eyes looking to the fruit of the ages

“The New Pollution” was basically played every night of the Colors tour, except for a handful of shortened festival sets, and, for some reason, in Europe. On the European leg of the tour, Beck dropped it for the first 6 shows, before bringing it back for 5 of the last 6. In the end, it was done at 47 of the main 59 shows of the tour. For this, I listened to about 25 of them.

Colors tour lineup

Beck Hansen - vocals, tambourine (most of the time) Jason Falkner - electric guitar, backing vocals Roger Joseph Manning Jr. - synthesizer, tambourine, backing vocals Dwayne Moore - bass, backing vocals Chris Coleman - drums Alex Lilly - percussion, backing vocals, tambourine (2nd half of tour) Cecilia Della Peruti - backing vocals, tambourine (1st half), electric guitar (2nd half) Jake Sinclair - acoustic guitar, backing vocals So “The New Pollution” actually had two different versions on this tour, one for the first half, one for the second half.  I’ll start with the first half, which is pretty simple, as it was basically identical to the version you hear on Odelay -- all three verses, well-timed drops of the sax riff, a little funky synthesizer jam solo, everything was replicated on the stage. It was, and remains, a crowd-pleaser. Beck seemed to particularly enjoy Roger’s synthesizer solo, giving him a shout-out of “Manthing!!” every night as he started. Me, I was usually struck by Jason’s atmospheric guitar, especially towards the end of the song.  He gave the song a bit of a roar.

You can really hear when Jason dives in with some cool guitar at the end. Early on in the tour, I think the band played this song a little flat, but really by this point it’s pretty jumping and reaaaaaaaaaaaaaal funky.

A few nights after this show, in Nashville, Beck had his opening band, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band come out and join him for a handful of songs. One they did was “New Pollution.” I am not aware of a recording, but having a real horn section do the sax riff was certainly cool!

So then after the Europe tour, Beck and his band made a bunch of little adjustments to a number of the songs they’d been doing. One of these was “The New Pollution.” Obviously the song remains “The New Pollution,” with the incessant rhythm and the sax and stuff, but some of the connective tissue was refined a little.  Here are the changes:

The intro to the song was changed from the “doo doo da doo doo” tape to the seductive sax riff. I think the “doo doo” bit was a good clue for the audience that the song was starting, though the sax riff is a more dramatic style build, the way it slides into the beat. Both are good avatars for the song, and both work as introductions. 

After going to the first two verses and choruses, as said, early on Roger would slide into the song’s funky synth solo. For this second half of the tour, they swapped this out, and Jason Falkner would play a guitar solo there instead. He didn’t try to mimic the synth part either, coming up with his own thing. Beck usually called out Jason as he started, as he had with Roger. I like this change, it brings another sound to the song, putting a little rock and roll in there with the funk and sax.

Lastly, the band dropped the third verse/chorus of the song entirely, replacing it by going into a short cover of The Creation’s “Making Time.”  (A cool song you may know from the greatest movie ever.)   One of the first times they did this, in Montreal, Beck messed up and started to sing the third verse anyway, before realizing and getting into “Making Time.” He got used to it though, and seemed to always dig singing that cover!

That’s the version from the second half of 2018. It’s pretty awesome. Here is a version from Red Rocks:

[colorstours-blog]

全新景點~刺激新鮮!! 空中鐵路單車 skybike 享受騁馳在空中的新潮快感 觀賞西海壯觀景致 千萬不要錯過這個夏天最獨特最酷炫的體驗

詳情在這裡~

【自然愉悅之旅】天空鐵路單車。藝術雕塑動物公園。竹島私房韓屋下午茶一日逰  http://colorstours.com/product_d.php?id=189

【夏日限定】瘋玩保寧泥漿節。天空鐵路單車。烤貝無限吃一天團  http://colorstours.com/product_d.php?id=167

[michelleplur]

Another successful night with the rave family! @Tritonal you were brilliant! Despite me almost getting kicked out for raving too hard, it was one of my top shows! Can't wait to see you guys again in Tampa next month! #tritonal #ravefamily #colorstour #tritonians ✨💕 @slattsslattsslatts @plur_prince @molnarzz @vileeanne @efexofficial @ahraindrop @iii_xiv_

[kwokpow]

@tritonal was the business last Saturday. #tritonia #bassmnt #colorstour #sosick @karenxduong @meeemss @baarbaraalee @sir_yatik @meiseen +Sao @burnz_and_beez @itstommydude +Sara +long @bassmnt (at Bassmnt)

[whiskeyclonenet-blog]

Beck - Colors tour breakdown: “Hollywood Freaks”

hot like a cheetah, neon mamacita Beck played “Hollywood Freaks” quite a lot back between 2000 and 2003. Then it was very rare in 2005 (a few times only), and a little bit more in 2006.  He then dropped it entirely until this year, when about 20 shows into the tour, he dug it out and played it four nights in a row in April. After that it was a sporadic rarity again: twice in Europe in June, once each in July, August, and September. For this, I have only heard 3 of these 9 versions from 2018, alas.  (The first one in Charlotte, and then the final two - San Francisco and, of course, Hollywood.)  Each one was kind of different too, so perhaps the ones I haven’t found recorded were also unique. Colors tour lineup Beck Hansen: vocals Jason Falkner: electric guitar Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: keyboards, synthesizer, backing vocals Dwayne Moore: bass, backing vocals Chris Coleman: drums Alex Lilly: keyboards, backing vocals Cecilia Della Peruti: percussion, backing vocals Jake Sinclair: two tambourines, backing vocals

If you look at the structure of the song on record, “Hollywood Freaks” has a simple rap/chorus, rap/chorus, bridge, rap/chorus, chant, bridge, outro.  Live, Beck never did the third rap/chorus (the Norman Schwartzkoff verse), instead going straight into the chant (”jockin’ my Mercedes!” etc.).  At the first version in Charlotte, Beck also did an outro, where as on record, he talk-rapped a little bit, improvising some stuff about Charlotte.  He did a similar improv in San Francisco, but for some reason, in Hollywood, the song just stopped after the chant. I will say, the first version in Charlotte was a little boring.  The song feels too laidback, and did not quite have the oomph to pick the crowd up (and since Vultures is a bit of a fan favorite, it’s got an advantage there!).  I was happy that the two later versions come off much better.  One difference was Dwayne Moore on bass, who seems to have taken much more charge of the funk on the later two versions. The B-53s are also a nice touch, jumping in with “sha na na”s and even making me laugh when they do a seductive “sales goin’ triple” in Hollywood.  The “touch it real good”  section of the chorus also comes off quite well. Here is the version in San Francisco, which is certainly the best of the three.