{"id":987,"date":"2016-02-27T23:03:00","date_gmt":"2016-02-27T23:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/?p=987"},"modified":"2026-06-27T23:05:23","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T23:05:23","slug":"beck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/?p=987","title":{"rendered":"Beck"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

June 2006, Georgia Theatre, Athens, Ga.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was in my 20s when Mellow Gold<\/em> came out, and it was decreed by the older generation that Beck was the speaker for my generation based solely on the song \u201cLoser,\u201d a song I liked at first and now hate almost as much as I hate \u201cMargaritaville\u201d. With \u201cLoser\u201d and the movie Slacker<\/em>, there was a sense the Gen X 20-somethings of the time were a cast of aimless, shiftless do-nothing entities. It\u2019s not true, but I\u2019ve at times said the same thing about the upcoming generation \u2014 it\u2019s an endless cycle that people in their 40s think people in their 20s aren\u2019t doing enough.<\/p>\n

Oh, and get off my lawn.<\/p>\n

Of course Beck shook off this Slacker king title by continuing to produce weird and inventive music which bordered the boundaries of several genres. Odelay<\/em>, with the hits \u201cWhere It\u2019s At,\u201d \u201cDevils Haircut\u201d and \u201cThe New Pollution,\u201d sent Beck into a huge realm of popularity, but Midnite Vultures<\/em> is really where it\u2019s at. With influences from Grandmaster Flash, Velvet Underground, Prince and David Bowie, the album is about as much fun as your ears can have.<\/p>\n

Beck is a huge talent who can play in venues 10 times the size of the Georgia Theatre, but that\u2019s the cool thing about Athens, huge bands play tiny venues because of what the city has achieved musically. I remember a conversation with the Theatre\u2019s former owner when I asked about the Beck show. I think he said he might have lost money on the show, but who cares because Beck played the Georgia Theatre.<\/p>\n

There were two shows (actually three, but I\u2019ll get to that) and I went to the first one. It was a sold-out crowd of happy, happy people and Beck and his large band of musicians (and puppets) obliged with a show of non-stop gems.<\/p>\n

The Information<\/em>, Beck\u2019s 10th album, was released a few months before the show, while 2005\u2019s Guero<\/em> was continuing to have songs played in popular rotation. With a wealth of songs to choose from, Beck roamed through 23 songs with a patient pace, playing old favorites (the opener \u201cDevils Haircut,\u201d \u201cHotwax,\u201d \u201cMinus\u201d) as well as newer hits he fashioned with the Dust Brothers (\u201cHell Yes\u201d and \u201cBlack Tambourine\u201d). And in true odd Beck style, the screen behind the band was showing the band \u2014 in puppet form \u2014 playing songs as the band was playing them. The real Beck, wearing a wide hat, black vest and white shirt, was mirrored by the puppet Beck. Rock-star puppets are a total Beck thing.<\/p>\n

The show ended in a flourish \u2014 \u201cSexx Laws,\u201d \u201cWhere It\u2019s At,\u201d \u201cLoser,\u201d \u201cE-Pro\u201d \u2014 with Loser not sounding as bad, even though I got the sense Beck isn\u2019t so keen on playing it anymore. As the band walked off stage the crowd longed for an encore that didn\u2019t come.<\/p>\n

Why?<\/p>\n

Because the band ducked out the back, went across the street, and did a 50-minute encore at the Georgia Bar. Stepping up to the mic and announcing they were the \u201cnew house band,\u201d Beck played \u201cBillie Jean,\u201d \u201cAnother One Bites the Dust,\u201d rambled into some Justin Timberlake, then added \u201cDebra\u201d and \u201cNausea\u201d for good measure. It was, as you learn after living in Athens for a little while, an only-in-Athens moment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

June 2006, Georgia Theatre, Athens, Ga. I was in my 20s when Mellow Gold came out, and it was decreed by the older generation that Beck was the speaker for my generation based solely on the song \u201cLoser,\u201d a song I liked at first and now hate almost as much as I hate \u201cMargaritaville\u201d. With […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":988,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[176,40],"class_list":["post-987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-concerts","tag-beck","tag-georgia-theatre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=987"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/987\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":989,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/987\/revisions\/989"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}