Beck

Last night we saw Beck at NHK Hall in Shibuya. NHK hall is like Townsville Civic Theater's great big sumo brother. It was a very different vibe to the other concerts I've seen in the last few years, which were at Saitama Super Areana or the Budokan, both much larger spaces. But the audience was very appreciative of Beck, and even though it was concert hall type seating, within a few minutes everyone was standing, handclapping, and generally flailing about. You'd never do that at either of the other venues for fear of plummeting to your death. At the Super Arena you might never hit bottom.

It was the first time I'd ever seen a concert that was opened by a magician. Cameron, the magician, came out for about 10 minutes and did some tricks. He was ably assisted by the gimp from Pulp Fiction. The gimp was stripped to the waist and he and Cameron looked like the were cavorting around between tricks in some kind of S&M inspired body-rubbing dance. Those up close were appreciative of it, but there were no large screen TVs so anyone further back than the first 10 rows (us) saw very little. Sleight of hand just ain't the same when the hands aren't visible. Still it passed some time until Beck, and the S&M dancing was entertaining.

Beck and the four others in the band put on a show that covered his whole career, but about half of it came from the last two albums, which was fine by me as I've had them on high-rotation since buying the tickets. About 2/3 in they changed pace and did some acoustic numbers, including the old Korgis' song 'Everyone's Gotta Learn Sometime'. They also left their instruments behind and came to front stage with what looked like Nintendo Dses to do some scratching, rapping and electronic stuff. This was really cool as the keyboardist jumped down and "played" (screen touched) from within the audience. There was also a shaved head pro-wrestler looking security guy walking around with a video camera that was projecting to a black & white array of lights behind the band that was acting as a low resolution screen. There was much cheering from the audience as they could see themselves up big on the "screen".

My only complaint was that it was a tad short. Beck would have come on around 7:30 PM, and we were well on our way back to Shibuya station by 9 PM. Still, rating the night on quality over quantity, it was fantastic. Plus they played 'Chem Trails', so I was happy. And Mari stayed awake the whole time, so it must have been good.