Mr Cool Fuck USA

Aka, another dose of musical genius from the artist known as Beck. His Albert Hall solo gig, back in April, was an intimate & restrained performance, drawing heavily on tracks from the melancholic “Sea Change“. Things couldn’t have been more contrasting at the Brixton Academy. Supporting act ‘The Ravonettes’ were nothing to write home about, but hey, we’d come to see Beck, the support act is just there to get the audience cranked up. And with their punishing guitar riffs, they certainly got things moving.

From the moment he appeared on stage, with a menacing grin, you could tell it was going to be a fun night. Starting things off were a pair of songs from Odelay (Novocane & The New Pollution), then closely followed by from my favorites from “Midnite Vultures” – Get Real Paid & Nicotine & Gravy. Ever the performer, at one point he was dashing around the stage with a roland keyboard. A brief slowing of tempo for a few songs from Sea Change was the only respite to more than 1+1/2 hours of music, which finished with a cover of White Stripes classic ‘Black Math’.

For the record, here’s the set list