Project Description
BECK
+ Meg Mac
at The Royal Theatre Canberra
(26 February 2018)
Live Review
by Benjamin Smith
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When Beck, best known for being uknowable, comes to town its almost a must to go even if only out of curiosity. The only certainty being that its impossible to predict how any given performance might unfold.
On this particular evening he starts with a couple of sleepy acoustic tracks and for a second its tempting to think that’s the show he might have come to play. If so, its also tempting to think he might have misjudged the room and the crowd just a little but that it’s still a pretty good show to come to see.
The set kicks of with the pleasantly folky Everybody’s Gotta Learn Sometime, which is a pretty sweet way to get an audience onside early on in the piece. By the second song in he’s leading the crowd in a sing-a-long to Raspberry Beret by Prince, an artist who clearly left his mark on the enigmatic Mr Hansen. To establish that kind of rapport with a crowd so quickly is a testament to the kind of relationship between artist and audience, it speaks to how ready his fans are to go with him wherever he wants to take them.
After about 5 or 6 of those dreamy folk pop numbers he concedes he might have given the audience a false impression of what they were in for and dials the intensity up significantly. Its almost as if there were two different performers wearing the same kooky white suit. The first who played the kinds of things that you nod your head and sway to and that make you think nice things about the world. The other that doesn’t make you think at all and takes you on the kind of sensory experience other artists are still trying to imagine.
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With an 8 piece band that included some bongos, a banjo and a shitload of other instruments as well as what was probably the most spectacular use of projected CG backdrop animation you’re likely to see, the second part of the show was an experiment in audio visual overload. Rather than being aloof, as his music sometimes implies, he is warm and loveable and excited and overflowing with an infectious positivity. He plays a couple of offbeat tracks from Morning Phase. By the time he and his band got to Devil’s Haircut the atmosphere in the room was blissful, and that was where it stayed.
He was backed up by the surprisingly soulful Meg Mac, who did a version of the great Bill Withers’ Grandma’s Hands which might have given the original a run for its money on the right day. The striking voice combined with the stillness she brings to her set makes for a commanding presence. There is a refreshing absence of the emotional psuedo-depth that often accompanies the stage work of artists of her ilk.
The choice of Meg Mac as support was an inspired one in that the styles are different enough to provide contrast but there is a self-awareness the two acts share that unites their approaches.
The Royal can be a tough place to work, there is an art to getting an audience to engage and both performers met the challenge pretty well given the unfilled spaces and the trouble the sounds had filling them.
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AMNPLIFY – DB
My nickname is “The Amnplifier”. Why? Because around here my focus is on being a conduit for providing greater outcomes that people come here for. My day to day “work” is living in the moment, and I love helping others concentrate on finding their connection to themselves through their experiences.
Why start a music environment? The truth is I love music, I love writing, and I love life. I work with musicians every day, and I feel certain that I will be until they put me in the ground. I have been managing people in businesses of some sort for over thirty five years so along the way I have developed some “wisdom” from my regular and constant “observations”.
Amnplify your experience. That is what we want you to do here, and if you want to let me know why you do, or don’t, shoot me a message on Facebook.
Hope you enjoy yourself here and find something that hits you somewhere.
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