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Beck Colors tour breakdown: “Heart Is A Drum”

circling around your iron will

“Heart Is A Drum” was a pretty solid regular song on the Morning Phase tour of 2014, and then the tours of 2015-2017, as well. However, as they moved into the Colors tour in 2017 & 2018, the song sort of fell out of the lineup. It was done just 13 times of the 59 main Colors shows, and most of those were front-loaded -- it was performed at 10 of the first 18 shows, but then just 3 of the last 41.

Colors tour lineup: Beck Hansen - acoustic guitar, vocals Jason Falkner - acoustic guitar, backing vocals Roger Joseph Manning Jr. - piano, backing vocals Dwayne Moore - bass, backing vocals Chris Coleman - drums (except once, they went drumless) Alex Lilly - keyboards, backing vocals Cecilia Della Perutti - percussion, backing vocals Jake Sinclair - ukulele, backing vocals On the Morning Phase tour, Beck tended to play a slightly sped up version of “Heart Is A Drum,” compared to the record. For the versions I listened to here from 2017-2018, the song seems to have drifted back to its usual pace and leisurely flow. Chris Coleman shows his lighter touch on drums, and Roger Joseph Manning’s delicate piano is always a joy to hear. 

You can hear that here, at this version from Dallas in March:

After this, the song was played far less, as I said above. I did not hear all the versions but I think most were like this.  We did get one the song one time in Boston, the final time on the tour, and the only time on the tour after June. In that instance, Beck played the song in his ‘acoustic’ set, where he had his band crowd around him, creating a more intimate moment. During this set, Beck most frequently did “Blue Moon” and “Lost Cause,” but this one time, he subbed in “Heart Is A Drum.” It remains fairly similar, just that his band is all standing closer to him -- except Roger, whose piano doesn’t travel as well as the ukulele and guitars, and Chris on drums, who sits the song out entirely.  It is nice to hear the song done differently, but I think the drums give the song a pulse it needs, and I miss them here. Anyway, here is that one:

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Beck Colors tour breakdown: “Nausea”

a straight-line walker in a blackout room

“Nausea” was a big part of Beck’s setlists in 2006-2007 on the Information tour, and then also in 2008-2009 for Modern Guilt. Since then it has only been played a few times (twice in 2011, once in 2012).  But then, in October 2017, Beck played it 4 times, before dropping it entirely once again. The Colors tour started in October 2017 with a quick worldwide run - 2 shows in London, a show in LA, 2 more in Tokyo (and a handful of TV/radio spots).  The main run of the tour didn’t really begin until 2018.  Beck played “Nausea” 3 times (and once on a radio show), and each time was back in those early October shows,right as the tour started.  When they resumed the tour in 2018, the song had been forgotten. Colors tour lineup Beck Hansen - electric guitar, vocals Jason Falkner - electric guitar, backing vocals Roger Joseph Manning Jr. - tambourine, percussion, backing vocals, synthesizer Dwayne Moore - bass Chris Coleman - drums Cecilia Della Peruti - percussion, backing vocals Alex Lilly - shakers, backing vocals Jake Sinclair - acoustic guitar, backing vocals

I only have video of one of the versions of “Nausea,” which you can see below. I also watched the radio show gig, but I can’t direct embed that one, but if you want to watch it click this link. Anyway, this band did a solid if unmemorable version of the song. The extra vocals, as always, enhances songs that I, for some reason, don’t expect them to. Also during the final verse, Beck kicks his guitar up a notch, roaring in there with a stronger louder riff: that’s the best part.  If you watch the version Beck did on Letterman in 2006, back then they played it with a bit higher energy and a lot more percussion/drums (two drummers, even). Still, “Nausea” seems to have matured into a more straight-forward rock song, which can still be an exciting live bop.

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Beck Colors tour breakdown “Up All Night”

see the colors and all the kids going home

“Up All Night,” being the main single from Colors, made its debut as the tour started in October 2017, and then was played at every night for the rest of the tour.  (Except once, it’s not on a setlist for one show in Australia.)  Beck also played it on a handful of TV shows through the year as well.  

Colors tour lineup: Beck Hansen - vocals, electric guitar (first half of the tour, then he went instrumentless for the second) Jason Falkner - electric guitar, backing vocals Roger Joseph Manning Jr. - synthesizer, backing vocals Dwayne Moore - bass Chris Coleman - drums Cecilia Della Peruti - electric guitar, backing vocals Alex Lilly - keyboards (1st half of tour), keytar (2nd half), backing vocals Jake Sinclair - acoustic guitar, backing vocals, percussion (sometimes) As I’ve written before, Beck doesn’t usually experiment much with his new tracks on stage. He likes to let the audience know the new songs a bit, sometimes even before attempting them, let alone trying anything different with them. “Up All Night” he felt comfortable doing as a popular single, though certainly he did not do much beyond replicate the recording on stage.  There was one slight addition to the song during the second half of the tour, and another big one in Japan, which I’ll get to. But first let’s start with the start of the tour.  I’ve been trying to stick to live gigs as examples, but due to the sound quality here, my favorite version is from Beck’s appearance on Ellen DeGeneres’ talk show. It really shows off the B-53s’ voices and some of the cool guitar.

I think hearing this live version back when it happened helped me dig the song more; just the way Jason works on the guitar, pushing that choppy riff.  I started to like the song and get it.  On the second half of the tour, the song did not change drastically, but Roger kicked off a sort of pre-intro, consisting of an electronic robot voice / slowed down Beck vocal loop.  It gave Beck some space to improvise some talk before the song started, and he usually led it off with a bit asking the audience if they’re afraid of the dark.  I like this bit a lot, it ups the drama when the “Up All Night” riff does kick-off properly. You can hear them do this here:

Lastly, on the Japanese version of Colors, there is a remix of “Up All Night” in which Japanese pop/hiphop singer Daoko sings over Beck’s rap section (the “one two what you doing? jumping through some hoops” part). So while in Japan for the two nights of the Summersonic Festival, Daoko was also on the bill, and Beck had her on stage to do her rap.  I love this!  Daoko’s section is in Japanese but I like it more than Beck’s rap, to be honest.  I kind of wish he had Cecilia of the B-53s rap something in that part of the song at the other shows throughout the year!  Here is her appearance at the Tokyo night of Summersonic:

Anyway having listened to a lot of version of “Up All Night,” I do think it is one of the ones Beck mentioned was done for Colors, but meant for the stage. It is lively, with a lot of movement. Certainly there were some versions that fell flat, but as the band continued to do it, they got more confident with it.   

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Beck Colors tour breakdown: “Lovesick Blues”

got a feeling called the blues

Beck has officially covered “Lovesick Blues” a handful of times over the years on stage: a few times on acoustic Sea Change shows, twice in 2006 (tho probably more we don’t have documented), and then this year nine more times. But as Beck said on stage, this is a song he likes to play around the house, and as a young musician, it’s one he’s done “hundreds” of times. This year, he did it throughout the April/May tour across the Southern U.S. (6 of the 8 shows), and then once in Europe in June, and once more in September. He seems to mainly just want to do the song while in the South/Midwest U.S., the home of Hank Williams. (Even did it in Birmingham near where Hank was from.) Colors tour lineup Beck - acoustic guitar, vocals Kansas City show lineup Beck - acoustic guitar, vocals Jake Sinclair - mandolin (maybe Jason Falkner on acoustic guitar? see video below)

It usually does not take much to have Beck cover some Hank Williams, someone it seems he learned to play guitar/write songs by playing. This year, the trigger was the recent “Wal-Mart Kid” -- a skinny blonde boy who doesn’t not look a little like Beck, singing “Lovesick Blues” in a Wal-Mart, a video of which went crazy viral. Beck saw this video and immediately related to the kid, and as he told it, wanted to ‘reclaim’ the song back a little.

So all the versions usually had Beck telling this story, before he does a quick minute-and-a-half version of the song on his guitar.  He seems to regularly go, “oh shit that’s wrong” and forget the lyrics... but honestly, I think he’s faking it.  Haha.  He knows the song inside and out, right?  Clearly.  Here is the most solid version from Charlotte:

Then nearer the end of the tour in Kansas City, Beck had his band down to the front of the stage and round him. They do some acoustic songs together and then Beck goes into “Lovesick Blues.” It appears that Jake Sinclair is adding some mandolin to it, but the video doesn’t really show any of the band.  Here is a video of that one:

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Beck Colors tour breakdown: “Think I’m In Love / I Feel Love”

whisperin’ hello through a smoke-ring smile

“Think I’m In Love” has been a regular in Beck’s setlists basically since it came out. The song has not changed too much, though some earlier tries were noisier, more rock, and over time Beck embraced the groovy disco side of the song a little more.  And I mean that even before he started tacking a brief cover of Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love” on to it. Still, “I Feel Love” has been part of the song now since summer 2013. I think there are occasional “short” versions of the song where they don’t tag with “I Feel Love,” but mostly, it fits right in. And even when I listen to The Information, I half-expect “I Feel Love” to show up, it has become so embedded. This year did not change all that, though the frequency of “Think” fell off a little for the second half of the tour. Overall, Beck played it at 31 of 59 main shows: this was frontloaded to 18 of the first 21 shows, and just 13 of the last 38.  For this, I listened to about half (15) of them. Colors tour lineup Beck - vocals, electric guitar (though in 2 of the videos I saw, he didn’t play any instrument) Jason Falkner - electric guitar, backing vocals Roger Joseph Manning Jr. - keyboards, synthesizer, backing vocals Dwayne Moore - bass, backing vocals Chris Coleman - drums Cecilia Della Peruti - bongos, backing vocals Alex Lilly - percussion, backing vocals Jake Sinclair - acoustic guitar, backing vocals

As said, the song has pretty much settled right in, and even with new bands or time passing, it does not change. It sounds much like the record, maybe a little fuller, grander, though they drop the fourth verse, jumping straight to the outro.  (The outro in turn morphs into “I Feel Love” usually for about a minute.) The fuller band here on the Colors tour does help the song: they can better duplicate all the little percussion and details of the song (for instance, Cecilia plays bongos). That said, Roger Joseph Manning Jr. also does a lot -- little piano keyboard runs during the intro, mimicking the strings throughout on synthesizer. And it’s hard for this song when the rhythm section is on lock: Chris Coleman and Dwayne Moore laying the steady groove for all the details to land on.  A few times, the band played a little longer intros to the song, usually to give Beck time to go get his guitar, or because Beck is chatting to the audience. Here is one of those from the show in Hamburg.

One time in Dallas, which I can’t quite figure out why, Beck started singing with the drums before the band jumped in, which does give this song a slightly different feel to start. I really liked starting the song this way, hearing the band sort of fall into shape behind him: 

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Beck Colors tour breakdown - “Mixed Bizness”

pour champagne on a honeybee “Mixed Bizness” has been one of Beck’s most popular live songs to do on stage since he wrote it. It was a regular on (almost) every band tour he’s done since it was released on Vultures in 1999. The two times it was not was in 2008 on Modern Guilt’s tour (though he did do it around half the time), and in 2014 for Morning Phase (when he did not do it at all).  However, in 2016, it made its return and pretty much has not left his setlists since. This year on the Colors tour, he did it 54 of the 59 main shows. The times he dropped it were 4 shorter festival sets, and one crazy club show he did where he played none of his ‘common’ songs.  Somewhat strangely, I was only able to find about 20 versions from this year.

Colors tour lineup

Beck Hansen - electric guitar, vocals Jason Falkner - electric guitar, backing vocals Roger Joseph Manning Jr. - synthesizer, backing vocals Dwayne Moore - bass Chris Coleman - drums Alex Lilly - percussion, keyboards, backing vocals (and for a few shows, keytar) Cecilia Della Peruti - tambourine, backing vocals Jake Sinclair - percussion, backing vocals This is a tough one to write about, because there were a number of variable sections to the song over the year.  The basic structure is basically thus: an intro section, two verses (”I’m mixing business with leather” and “Word up to the manthing”) and choruses (”all right now”), the longer bridge (”Do you want to ride on the Baltic sea?”), another chorus, then an ending jam.  The song very often then stops completely, before Beck revives it with his “Do you want to take it higher?” spiel.  This, by the way, omits the third verse/chorus and second “Baltic Sea” bridge which appear on the record.

So, in the beginning of the tour, Beck stuck this basic structure. It may be the bad luck of my sampling, but it also seemed early on the tour, that Beck and the band did not feel particularly engaged during “Mixed Bizness.” It sounds fine, super funky even, but watching some videos and they were sort of just vacantly staring ahead. Some were better than others, surely, but yea.  Here is a good “standard” version of the song, from Charlotte:

This definitely did not last long, though. By April, the song was much more hyped and a joy to watch. Beck started adlibbing all through the song -- he’d intro the song with lots of office talk (”send you a fax from the boardroom,” or “are we coordinating schedules?”).  The band occasionally came down and danced next to him, and they added a little sideways synchronicity hop to the act, and it’s all just a blast!  Also sometimes, Beck would BEGIN the song with his “I wanna take you higher” bit. Just whatever he felt like doing in the moment.  The song could start any way, and end any way. This version from Alabama is all kinds of fun:

Lastly, there’s two more notable versions I should mention. I’ve mentioned this for a few other songs, but in Nashville, Beck had the Preservation Hall Jazz Band as his opening act, and he brought them out for like six songs during his set. A “Mixed Bizness” funk jam with actual full jazz horns?  Sounds like a great idea to me.  (Alas, I know of no recordings.)

Second, in Atlanta, Beck extended the song about twice as long as normal. I don’t know why, he just got in a mood for it, I guess. The intro goes on for awhile, then they go through the song like usual.  Then he tacks on a “I wanna take you higher,” again like normal. But after that, he tacks on another “let’s take it lower” section and they just keep going. Here it is:

I will add that the second half of the tour seemed to be slightly more standardized again; the experimentation of April and May sort of subsided. But it was still really funky, and a lot of fun.  Beck and the band have a great handle on this song, which allows them to play with it up there. "Mixed Bizness” was definitely one of the highlights for 2018 for me!    

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Beck Colors tour breakdown: “Seventh Heaven”

with the gold glass heart sending messages

As I noted for an earlier song (”Dear Life”), Beck sometimes likes to let new songs settle in his fan’s minds before putting it on them on stage. So throughout the Colors tour, Beck leaned to the main 4 or 5 singles, and mostly ignored the others. “Seventh Heaven”  was one he pretty much ignored, and to date, has only performed it four times. Fortunately, I have heard all four versions (and will include two here for you).

Colors tour lineup

Beck Hansen - vocals Jason Falkner - electric guitar, backing vocals Roger Joseph Manning Jr. - synthesizer, backing vocals Dwayne Moore - bass Chris Coleman - drums Alex Lilly - keyboards, backing vocals Cecilia Della Peruti - electric guitar, backing vocals Jake Sinclair - electric guitar, backing vocals “Seventh Heaven” made its live debut at the Studio Coast show in Tokyo, Japan (a show where he also debuted “Dear Life” and “Fix Me”).  Jason sounds amazing on it, leading the song and dropping cool guitar licks all over.  Roger nails the glassy synth sound, and keeping it all together is a great performance from Chris on drums.  They play all the sections of the song Here you can watch it:

A few months later, Beck went to Australia and New Zealand for a short leg of the tour. At the Melbourne show, Beck introduced the song as one they’d never played before (yep) and called it a “feel good song.”  This is probably my favorite live version of the song - with a strong groove and good vocals; alas, it’s not on Youtube so, I don’t know, trust me, I guess.

Two shows later, Beck did the song in Dallas as well.  Beck at each performance seems to be worried he’ll forget the lyrics (at least twice, saying something like “help me out if you know the words” to the crowd), but he does a generally fine job with it!

Lastly, 3 months go by after Dallas, and at a show in June in Brussels, Belgium, Beck played “Seventh Heaven” once again.  This time, however, Beck struggles a bit with the words, and though everyone sounds ok, it does feel a little like something is not quite clicking for the band. But in a way, because of this, I kind of like this version a lot!  The uplift and joy of the song comes across pretty well.  

“Seventh Heaven” is certainly one of my favorite songs on Colors, but I did wonder and feel hesitant about hearing it live: would they be able to pull it off?  It is a highly constructed song, with lots of moving parts. I’m not sure if my question was answered. These versions sound pretty good to me, but maybe they stopped playing it for a reason?  I really hope sometime in the future it can become a regular stage song...

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Beck Colors tour breakdown: “Soul Of A Man”

gris-gris and a goldenrod

Beck played “Soul Of A Man” quite often on his last two main tours (Modern Guilt in 2008, Morning Phase in 2014), as well as all the gigs from 2014-2017.  This seemed to have ended on the Colors tour, however, as the song was just done 11 times in the 59 main shows of 2018. And most of those were early, 7 of them were in the first 15 gigs, before only showing up twice in Europe and twice in August (one a club show, once in Japan). Unfortunately, for this, I was only able to find 2 versions of the song. But its form was pretty well-embedded, and I don’t imagine the song ever came out any differently.

Colors tour lineup:

Beck Hansen - electric guitar, vocals Jason Falkner - electric guitar, backing vocals Roger Joseph Manning Jr. - tambourine, percussion, keyboards, backing vocals Dwayne Moore - bass Chris Coleman - drums Alex Lilly - keyboards, backing vocals Cecilia Della Peruti - tambourine, backing vocals Jake Sinclair - acoustic guitar, backing vocals “Soul Of A Man” comes off pretty well on stage, where I enjoy the song much more than I do on record. One of the versions I heard (the Melbourne show) was a bit more herky-jerky than the other (Washington DC show 2). The Melbourne one isn’t on Youtube, and the DC show only has half of it; so instead, I’ll dip back slightly to this show in September 2017 a couple of months before Colors came out, as an example of the song live.  It’s the exact same band, and I think it’s a good version, so it works as an example here.

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Beck Colors tour breakdown - “Timebomb”

we got a red alert

A quick timeline of “Timebomb”: Beck started playing it live in 2006, just a few times; we figured it would be on The Information. It, obviously, was not. Then in 2007, he dropped it as a single. He wasn’t really touring at the time, but when he did go back on the road in 2008 and 2009 for Modern Guilt, he played it quite regularly.  Then where were sporadic tours for about 5 years, and he did not play it at all.  In 2014, behind Morning Phase, Beck brought the song back near the end of the year for about 15 shows.  It then showed up 3 times in the summer of 2017 with his new band, who a few months later, when the Colors tour began in October played it one time in Japan (October 24, 2017). They would not return to it at all for the rest of the tour. Colors tour lineup:

Beck Hansen - vocals Jason Falkner - electric guitar, backing vocals Roger Joseph Manning Jr. - synthesizer Dwayne Moore - bass Chris Coleman - drums Alex Lilly - backing vocals, keyboards Cecilia Della Peruti - electric guitar, backing vocals Jake Sinclair - electric guitar, backing vocals Almost always in that history of “Timebomb,” Beck speeds the song up on stage.  In 2008, they’d play it fast, and cut off the ending verse/chorus, making it all feel even faster. This carried over to Morning Phase tour, where it was fast, but they did do the whole song.

Last year in Japan, the one time they played “Timebomb,” the song does have a totally different feel to it. The buzzing synth riff is gone, led by percussion and vocals. It feels more punk rock to me, harder than the original, less groove. Beck seems to enjoy singing it, though misses his mark on the ‘rap’ in the middle. It’s a lot of fun -- this Studio Coast show in Tokyo had a HYPED audience, which make its videos a blast.  Here, you can watch it, though it misses the very beginning of the song and is a bit shaky. If this is what this band was going to do to “Timebomb,” I’d have loved for it to get more reps!

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Beck Colors tour breakdown: “Blackbird Chain”

give me traces of your lifeblood flowing

Beck did not perform “Blackbird Chain” very often on the Colors tour. At longer shows, he did have a revolving set of Morning Phase songs he could do, and while “Blackbird” was one of them, he only did it 6 times in 59 shows (and 2 were at the first two gigs, no less).  For this, I found recordings of 2 of these, but they’re similar, and I don’t think anything changed between them really.

Colors tour lineup

Beck Hansen - vocals, acoustic guitar Jason Falkner - electric guitar, backing vocals Roger Joseph Manning Jr. - keyboards, backing vocals Dwayne Moore - bass Chris Coleman - drums Cecilia Della Peruti - acoustic guitar, backing vocals Alex Lilly - keyboards, backing vocals Jake Sinclair - acoustic guitar, backing vocals I’ve always found “Blackbird Chain” to be a slightly odd song for the stage: it’s certainly pretty, but also... kind of sleepy. It has a strange momentum to it, and not as engaging as some of his other live songs as a result. It works on record beautifully, but can feel too chill in the context of a big show. For me, that’s my guess why it showed up so infrequently. Still, that’s not a knock on how the band performs it. Jason fills out the country licks, and, as he did on the Morning Phase tour, Roger gets a cool piano break.  In the version below, it almost sounds like Roger is going off book, improvising some stuff during his part.

Here is the version from the second night in Washington DC:

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Beck Colors tour breakdown - “The New Pollution”

pink eyes looking to the fruit of the ages

“The New Pollution” was basically played every night of the Colors tour, except for a handful of shortened festival sets, and, for some reason, in Europe. On the European leg of the tour, Beck dropped it for the first 6 shows, before bringing it back for 5 of the last 6. In the end, it was done at 47 of the main 59 shows of the tour. For this, I listened to about 25 of them.

Colors tour lineup

Beck Hansen - vocals, tambourine (most of the time) Jason Falkner - electric guitar, backing vocals Roger Joseph Manning Jr. - synthesizer, tambourine, backing vocals Dwayne Moore - bass, backing vocals Chris Coleman - drums Alex Lilly - percussion, backing vocals, tambourine (2nd half of tour) Cecilia Della Peruti - backing vocals, tambourine (1st half), electric guitar (2nd half) Jake Sinclair - acoustic guitar, backing vocals So “The New Pollution” actually had two different versions on this tour, one for the first half, one for the second half.  I’ll start with the first half, which is pretty simple, as it was basically identical to the version you hear on Odelay -- all three verses, well-timed drops of the sax riff, a little funky synthesizer jam solo, everything was replicated on the stage. It was, and remains, a crowd-pleaser. Beck seemed to particularly enjoy Roger’s synthesizer solo, giving him a shout-out of “Manthing!!” every night as he started. Me, I was usually struck by Jason’s atmospheric guitar, especially towards the end of the song.  He gave the song a bit of a roar.

You can really hear when Jason dives in with some cool guitar at the end. Early on in the tour, I think the band played this song a little flat, but really by this point it’s pretty jumping and reaaaaaaaaaaaaaal funky.

A few nights after this show, in Nashville, Beck had his opening band, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band come out and join him for a handful of songs. One they did was “New Pollution.” I am not aware of a recording, but having a real horn section do the sax riff was certainly cool!

So then after the Europe tour, Beck and his band made a bunch of little adjustments to a number of the songs they’d been doing. One of these was “The New Pollution.” Obviously the song remains “The New Pollution,” with the incessant rhythm and the sax and stuff, but some of the connective tissue was refined a little.  Here are the changes:

The intro to the song was changed from the “doo doo da doo doo” tape to the seductive sax riff. I think the “doo doo” bit was a good clue for the audience that the song was starting, though the sax riff is a more dramatic style build, the way it slides into the beat. Both are good avatars for the song, and both work as introductions. 

After going to the first two verses and choruses, as said, early on Roger would slide into the song’s funky synth solo. For this second half of the tour, they swapped this out, and Jason Falkner would play a guitar solo there instead. He didn’t try to mimic the synth part either, coming up with his own thing. Beck usually called out Jason as he started, as he had with Roger. I like this change, it brings another sound to the song, putting a little rock and roll in there with the funk and sax.

Lastly, the band dropped the third verse/chorus of the song entirely, replacing it by going into a short cover of The Creation’s “Making Time.”  (A cool song you may know from the greatest movie ever.)   One of the first times they did this, in Montreal, Beck messed up and started to sing the third verse anyway, before realizing and getting into “Making Time.” He got used to it though, and seemed to always dig singing that cover!

That’s the version from the second half of 2018. It’s pretty awesome. Here is a version from Red Rocks:

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Beck Colors tour breakdown - “Don’t Let It Go”

in the crossfire, there’s a story

Beck has only played “Don’t Let It Go” very rarely.  Even on the Morning Phase tour, it showed up only 5 times.  And this year for Colors, he did it just once (or more accurately one half time).

At the show in Tilburg, The Netherlands, Beck began his acoustic set.  He mentioned Morning Phase, and wanting to do some stuff from it.  He did one line of “Country Down,” then moved into a beautiful rendition of “Don’t Let It Go.”  Alas, after one verse and chorus, he abandons the song, commenting on how he hadn’t done it in awhile.   I don’t know if this song will ever get a real consistent turn in the live sets, but I quite loved hearing Beck do it solo acoustic.  

You can hear him do this here, it’s the first couple minutes of this video:

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Beck Colors tour breakdown “Take Me With U”

It’s in your eyes

A little busy, so throughout today, I will put up a few of the songs Beck did this year just once or twice.  First up, is this cover, the second track from Prince’s Purple Rain album, “Take Me With U.” Beck of course has been covering Prince for years, and even this year did another one at most of his shows.  In September, Beck started a new leg of his tour in Minnesota, and for the occasion, introduced this cover into the acoustic band portion of his set.  That’s a cool place for it, as Prince’s original is hardly an acoustic song, instead a synthpop masterpiece.  Beck and his band are slightly under-rehearsed on this, but it’s still a joy.   Colors tour lineup: Beck Hansen - acoustic guitar, vocals Jason Falkner - acoustic guitar Alex Lilly - dulcimer, backing vocals Cecilia Della Peruti - backing vocals Jake Sinclair - mandolin Roger sometimes adds keys to these acoustic sections from the background, but he doesn’t seem to be doing that here.  Chris Coleman actually worked with Prince as his drummer for a bit, but he’s not on this one.  Dwayne Moore also is not there, surprisingly. But for whatever reason, this cover was just a one-time, Minnesota-only, thing.  They did not do it again, as enjoyable as this is:

Over the years,  Beck has covered these Prince songs: “Take Me With U,” “Raspberry Beret,” “Controversy” (once with Arcade Fire), and “Erotic City.” He has also done half-covers/references to “Purple Rain” and “Kiss”.

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Beck Colors tour breakdown: “Colors”

see it in your eyes

“Colors” was of course a regular on the Colors tour, though Beck did skip the song at a handful of shows. In the end he did it at 48 of the main 59 shows, and once on national TV. Early on, Beck played the song just twice at the five shows in Australia, before it became a regular at 34 of the next 36. Then for some reason on the last leg, the song drifted away -- just 5 of the final 11 shows (and not at all for the final 4).  Kind of strange, as the song definitely seemed to be getting more momentum and perfection as the tour went on.  For this, I watched/heard about 26 of them. Colors tour lineup:

Beck Hansen - vocals Jason Falkner - electric guitar Roger Joseph Manning Jr. - synthesizer Dwayne Moore - bass, synthesizer Chris Coleman - drums Alex Lilly - backing vocals, keyboards Cecilia Della Peruti - electric guitar, backing vocals Jake Sinclair - backing vocals, tambourine As we’ll see in this series, Beck rarely experiments with his new songs on stage. He has said sometimes it takes years for a song to take hold, but it would be odd to not play some new stuff --- and while “Colors” was there most nights, it is very much just a recreation of the album. Over the course of the tour, it feels to me like the band did get a better handle of it. The flow from section to section improved. Roger’s little synth/pipes licks felt more natural and perfected. The singers can handle all the melodies. Beck certainly always seems to love his new song too, that’s for sure!  Here is the band doing the song on the Tonight Show.

The only notable “change” for “Colors” was that three times, Beck brought out his opening act to sing harmony with him. Twin Shadow joined him on stage in Atlanta, which unfortunately, I do not know of a recording.  Even cooler, in Nashville, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band joined Beck for 5-6 songs -- including “Colors.”  I think a jazz horn addition to “Colors” would sound amazing!  (But alas, I still don’t know of a recording.)  (Anyone?) The one guest spot I do have here is when Kimbra joined him in Alabama for the song (and “Where It’s At”).  I like her singing along with Beck, and I think this is a pretty solid version of the song too.

All this said, stepping back a little, I am not sure “Colors” ever quite hit the show centerpiece it could be. It is easily one of the best songs on the album, has a great video, and is very groovy. I think for this song to move forward, the band needs to hit it all just a little harder, which is how songs stand out on stage. Lean into the more audience-friendly parts. Get something flashy in there somehow. There isn’t just a lightly psychedelic song; it is also a fantastic, fun groove. Beck fans are still dancing to “Where It’s At” 20 years later; can “Colors” get there too?  

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Beck Colors tour breakdown: “Guess I’m Doing Fine”

yellow roses in the graveyard Beck played “Guess I’m Doing Fine” a lot in 2002/2003 on the Sea Change tours, and then a decent amount again in 2005/2006 behind Guero and The Information. After that, it vanished out of his repertoire.  He did it a few times in 2011 and 2012, which is odd because those years had some Sea Change nostalgic anniversary runs.  But then it vanished entirely again, not showing up at all for Morning Phase in 2014, or the years after. This year though it made yet another very slight return, as Beck played it once at a charity show between tour legs, and then showing up at two nights in a row in April.  All three of these performances were within a week.  Since we have video of each one, I’ll just go through them one by one. First, I’ll start with the non-tour show, which was a benefit gig in Los Angeles hosted by Stephen Stills, and included Neil Young and the surviving members of The Heartbreakers as the house band.  Beck did two songs with them, the first being a velvety smooth version of “Guess I’m Doing Fine.”  Mike Campbell of The Heartbreakers adds some cool lead guitar licks, while Benmont Tench gets some soul-filled organ in there.  Here it is, I love this version:

Six days later, Beck had resumed his Colors tour, starting a new leg in Washington, DC.  At the second night in DC, and also the third night in Charlotte, Beck had his band do “Guess I’m Doing Fine.” He must have enjoyed doing it with the Heartbreakers, and decided to give it a go at his own show. Colors tour lineup Beck Hansen - acoustic guitar, vocals Jason Falkner - electric guitar Roger Joseph Manning Jr. - synthesizer Dwayne Moore - bass Chris Coleman - drums Alex Lilly - keyboards Cecilia Della Peruti - acoustic guitar, backing vocals Jake Sinclair - banjo, backing vocals

Here is the first version in DC, which I think is really very good, though I still probably prefer the version with the Heartbreakers above.  Jake’s banjo is a nice new touch for the song, though understated.  

Now you’re probably thinking, “those sound great, why did they only do it one more time?”  And believe me, so am I.  But it may have to do with this last version -- where Beck false starts by playing the wrong song’s intro, and then once he gets the right song going, messes up the lyrics.  Once it gets going, it sounds fine, as Jason adds some terrific lead guitar dives, and Beck decides to add harmonica which really fills the song out (he didn’t use harmonica in the first two). Maybe Beck decided the song wasn’t worth the false starts, and banished it again.  But I do think it’s a lost opportunity, and that this band in particular would have really brought the best of this song out with more tries.  Here is that final version from Charlotte:

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Beck Colors tour breakdown “Girl / Power”

her black tongue tied round the roses Beck played “Girl” at the 5 of the first 6 shows of the Colors tour, through the end of 2017.  Then when they hit the road proper in February, they did not play it at all for the first 8 shows through the Australia tour (and then a couple gigs in Texas). They put the song back, however, in April at a festival in Mexico, and it was then played at every show for the rest of the year (except the one small club one where they excluded all the hits).  This puts its totals at 49 of the main 59 Colors gigs.  For this, I listened to around 20 of them. Colors tour lineup: Beck Hansen - vocals Jason Falkner - acoustic guitar, backing vocals Roger Joseph Manning Jr. - keyboards, backing vocals Dwayne Moore - synthesizer (synth bass) Chris Coleman - drums Alex Lilly - percussion, backing vocals Cecilia Della Peruti - percussion, backing vocals Jake Sinclair - acoustic guitar, backing vocals From the end of 2017 through June 2018, the version of “Girl” was similarly arranged to how we heard it on the Morning Phase tours and after.  The band races through it, similarly to the record, as Beck bops around the stage and Jason Falkner plays the acoustic slide guitar solo (I have suspicion it may be taped, but it’s hard to tell; Beck did often shout out Jason as he went).  The only difference from the record is they cut the ending in half; on Guero, Beck sings the chorus twice at the end of the song, live just once.  Here is a good example from a festival in Mexico.

I went back and listened to some older versions real quick too, like from 2012, for instance... and that band really seemed to challenge the song, changing tempos and drumbeats and things like that. This band did not ever do this, playing it really quite straight.

Then in July 2018, the band introduced a new section to the song. Instead of Jason doing the slide guitar section, the band broke into a cover of Kanye West’s “Power,” singing the acapella sample break he uses in the song. It seems like a nice winking nod to the Beck/Kanye controversy at the Grammys.  I believe they inserted this into every version after the show in Toronto on July 7.  (I do not know if they began this the night before in Detroit, but night 2 in Toronto, they definitely did.)  It is cool to hear, as Kanye’s bit is very catchy, and it fits surprisingly well into “Girl.”  “Girl Power!”  It feels a part of the song to me, and I’ll be quite curious to hear if Beck continues with this on future tours/bands.   Here is a good “Girl Power” version of the song from Kansas City:

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Beck - Colors tour breakdown: “Say Goodbye”

bones crack, curtains drawn “Say Goodbye” was not played that much in 2018, just 14 of the 59 main shows.  That said, it is never far from Beck’s repertoire, as it was done once or twice at basically every leg of the tour.  They took to doing an acoustic band section on non-festival shows, for which there were 3-4 Morning Phase songs that they could cycle in and out. “Say Goodbye” was one of them. Colors tour lineup Beck Hansen - acoustic guitar, vocals Jason Falkner - acoustic guitar, backing vocals Roger Joseph Manning Jr. - banjo, tambourine, backing vocals Dwayne Moore - bass, backing vocals Chris Coleman - drums Alex Lilly - tambourine, backing vocals Cecilia Della Peruti - backing vocals Jake Sinclair - banjo, backing vocals This is just a quick one, because basically I only found recordings of 2 of the “Say Goodbye”s on this tour, and it sounds identical to how we know it from the album. I do love that this band added an acoustic section to some of the shows, and could play intimately and quietly for a few songs. The banjos are nice to hear -- lowkey, Roger, normally the keyboardist, plays the lead banjo, though with this band, Jake joined him.  

Here is the version from Atlanta in May.