There are legacy acts who come out and do the museum-piece thing, and then there's Beck – who still seems mildly suspicious of the idea that his own catalogue is something fixed, like it belongs in a glass case or something.
At a packed Palais Theatre in Melbourne last night (12 May), he rolled in with a performance spanning his entire career, joined by an orchestra, and somehow makes the whole thing feel like it's still being invented in real time.
The vibe isn't 'greatest hits night'. It's more like someone rifling through their own memory – a constantly shifting pile of keepsakes with the volume knob permanently in motion.
Songs get stretched out, pulled apart and dressed up in orchestral clothes that make them feel weirdly cinematic. It's as if they've wandered off the set of a lost film and ended up in St Kilda by some happy accident – and we are absolutely there for it.
Of course, the big twist is the orchestra. Proper full deal courtesy of Philharmonia Australia. This isn't wallpaper or window dressing. It's the kind of collaboration that actively changes the temperature of the room.
Strings swell like emotional weather systems while brass sneaks in like plot twists. Suddenly these songs you've heard a million times are behaving differently, like they've had a long night and decided to rethink everything.
If you're into 'sad Beck' – as he himself calls it – and plenty of people in this room clearly are, it's basically Christmas Day. Beck has every musician's ultimate accessory: a full orchestra deployed like a slow-motion, heat-seeking heartstring manipulation device.
It doesn't feel cynical though. It feels committed. Big feelings, fully rendered, with no apology and no explanation other than the songs themselves; and it sounds magnificent.
And Beck? Loose. Warm. Very funny in that slightly sideways way he's always had. At one point he jokes about the orchestra clearing offstage, saying something along the lines of "the violins are probably first out the door and already home watching Netflix".
That feels about right as the classical side of the night packs up and the show catapults into something more stripped-back and twitchy.
A lot of the emotional centre of gravity comes from his albums 'Morning Phase' (2014) and 'Sea Change' (2002), which basically means the night keeps drifting into this reflective headspace where everything feels slightly slowed down and underwater.
'Lonesome Tears', 'Lost Cause', 'Paper Tiger' and that whole stretch of the set work beautifully with strings, percussion and brass. It all drags those songs into deeper water.
However, Beck being Beck, it never stays in one mood for long. 'Odelay' (1996) material brings the cut-up brain energy, 'Midnite Vultures' (1999) flashes neon funk in and out like a dance-floor hallucination, and bits from 'Guero' (2005), 'Mellow Gold' (1994) and 'Mutations' (1998) remind everyone that Beck has been genre-sliding for decades and that chaos is basically his natural habitat.
There are also covers threaded through the night like stray postcards – including nods to 'Everybody's Got to Learn Sometime' (The Korgis), 'It's Raining Today' (Scott Walker), 'Montague Terrace (In Blue)' (Scott Walker) and 'True Love Will Find You In The End' (Daniel Johnston) – which only adds to the sense the entire night is part tribute, part autobiography, part vivid fever dream.
One of the more interesting things is how the orchestration messes with Beck's voice. Stripped of the usual clutter, his vocals sound huge in the mix – sometimes floating right on top of the strings. It's a huge element in this weather system and a reminder of his excellent vocal prowess.
When things start to loosen up, 'Tropicalia' and 'The New Pollution' bring a huge bounce back into the room, like someone opening a window after too long inside a dream.
'Where It's At' snaps the crowd upright and it's a full-body, muscle-memory moment. The real gear shift, however, is the encore. This is where the performance stops being reverent and starts getting properly loose.
'Devils Haircut' comes out swinging – jagged, loud and alive. 'Mixed Bizness' turns into a full-blown, call-and-response situation with the crowd yelling everything back like they've been waiting all night for permission.
'Debra' – requested by the audience – becomes pure shared chaos in the best possible way, racing along on sheer joy and barely holding itself together.
Then, of course, 'Loser' works like a switch being flipped permanently to ABSOLUTE ON. No matter how many orchestras, reinventions or decades pass, that song hits and the room detonates. The Palais basically turns into one, giant sing-along with all restraint completely abandoned. SLACKERS UNITE!
The second encore pulls everything right back down again. A cover of Daniel Johnston's 'True Love Will Find You In The End' lands like the lights slowly coming up after a beautiful, but slightly surreal film. Simple and direct to the heart.
In the end, it isn't nostalgia and it isn't reverence. It's a guy digging through his own catalogue with an orchestra behind him, occasionally cracking jokes, occasionally breaking your heart, and generally refusing to treat any of his work like it's finished business.
One of my favourite things to do as a reviewer is listen to people talking about the show while heading home afterwards. The tram chatter after this one was unanimous: everybody loved it.
Gig people were all smiles and many said they cried. More than one person was already fantasising about Beck making a full-blown country album off the back of his versions of 'It's Raining Today' and 'Montague Terrace (In Blue)'. I second that emotion and I think this kid might have a future.
