Los Angeles’ indie prince Beck played a terrifically fun ‘n funky set. Phoenix remains the fantastic French groove machine it’s long been.
But the llamas almost stole the show at the Pacific Amphitheatre in Costa Mesa on Wednesday night.
That’s right, the goofy looking long-necked South America wooly mammals that graze on the hillside at the back of the amphitheater were digging it, and the rock stars on stage were amused.
Phoenix singer Thomas Mars interrupted his vocal on “Too Young / Girlfriend” early in its set to marvel that one of the llamas seemed to be bobbing his head to the beat.
“That’s the most distracting thing we’ve ever had,” Mars said at the end of the song. The llama in question, silhouetted atop the hillside against dark clouds at twilight just stared at him, though a song or two later it folded its long legs and sat for the rest of the set.
Beck burst onto the stage to open his set with a funky romp through “Devil’s Haircut,” singing and dancing as the video screens played groovy neon images reminiscent of old-timey Chinatown. But even he could not resist the cud-chewing headbangers on the green belt that separates the amphitheater from the Orange County Fair beyond the hill.
“Such a perfect night,” he said at the end of the psychedelic pop of “Wow” later in his set. “Came down down to Orange County to ride the giant Ferris wheel. Gonna ride the llamas right down the 5 Freeway.”
We’re kidding, sort of, about the importance of the llamas to a successful rock and roll show. For all we know they might be alpacas. But Orange County Fair shows are often a little bit … different. In a good way!
And, of course, Beck and Phoenix are always wonderful performers. To have them co-headlining as they are on the summer’s Odyssey Tour made for a wonderful night of music.
Beck’s back, baby!
Though Beck has never really gone away – playing festivals, one-offs, opening for the Red Hot Chili Peppers at SoFi Stadium – Summer Odyssey is his first proper tour since he went out on a co-headlining run with Cage the Elephant in 2019.
And it was clear from the jump that he’s been having fun this summer. He opened his set of 17 songs in a tight hour and 15 minutes with a pair of songs from1996’s “Odelay” – “Devil’s Haircut” and “New Pollution” – sandwiched around one from 1999’s “Midnite Vultures” – “Mixed Bizness” – signaling his intentions for the night.
Those two albums plus 2005’s “Guero” provided three songs each, and each of them are among his most fun and funky, fan favorites all.
This was also his most visual show in some time. The main video screen was bordered by three frames of decreasing size, creating the illusion of more depth of field as the visuals played on screen and frames alike. In a way, it created a sense of Beck and the band inside a giant shadowbox across which different images moved: A graffiti-covered L.A. underpass for the lowrider bounce of “Qué Onda Guero,” a sleek, modern art-filled contemporary house during the pop love song “Girl.”
Between songs, Beck was his usual offbeat funny self.
“This is what we play when we’re the band at an Alhambra wedding,” he announced at the end of the slinky, sensual soul of “Nicotine & Gravy.” “These are West Covina beats.”
The tour also represents the return of the classic Beck band lineup for the first time in a decade, Beck said. Bassist Justin Meldal-Johnsen, drummer Joey Waronker, keyboardist Roger Joseph Manning Jr. and guitarist Jason Falkner all have more than two decades of history with Beck in the studio and on the road. Percussionist Ian Longwell is the relative new guy.
That innate familiarity made for particularly tight musicianship all night whether it was the grooves of “Midnite Vulture,” on which Meldal-Johnsen, Waronker and Manning played and toured, or a mellow pair of “Sea Change” songs – “The Golden Age” and “Lost Cause” – which they and Falkner recorded and which Beck declared no one has ever played better.
Highlights of the back half of the show included “Loser,” of course, which prompted the biggest singalong of the night, the ecstatic, fun rush of “Sexx Laws.” and the grungy thump of “E-Pro.”
Beck and Phoenix teamed up for the summer single “Odyssey,” a theme song for the tour, as Beck called it – and what a great idea that is, right? The six guys of Phoenix came back out for Beck and Thomas Mars to duet on that before Beck and his band wrapped up the night with “Where It’s At,” which gave “Loser” a run for its money as the crowd participation song of the night.
Phoenix rising
The French band Phoenix plays an entirely different kind of music – electronic pop with a dash of disco and classical feelings – but like peanut butter and chocolate they mixed perfectly well with the eclectic rock of Beck.
There’s a willingness to explore something different at the heart of what both bands do, and a joyfulness that’s expressed in the songs they play. Irresistible stuff all around.
Phoenix opened its set just after 7:30 p.m. as many fans still were arriving, playing one of its biggest hits, “Lisztomania,” to a huge response from the many who were there on time.
The 2009′ album “Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix,” which help break out Phoenix in the United States, provided six of the 16 songs played over an hour and 15 minutes, from “LIsztomania” and “Lasso” early in the show to “Fences” and “1901” near the finish.
They’re all great tunes, bouncy beats beneath synth-and-guitar-fueled melodies, but that’s not the only flavor in Phoenix’s gelato shop. “Alpha Zulu,” the title track of Phoenix’s 2022 release, adds funk to the electropop vibes. “Ti Amo,” the title track to the previous album, has a summery disco on a European vacation groove.
“Sunskrupt!” is a mostly instrumental rock tune for which Mars ducked off stage until the finish, leaving the rest of Phoenix – bassist Deck d’Arcy, guitarist-keyboardist Laurent Brancowitz, and guitarist Christian Mazzalai – to shine alongside touring musicians Robin Coudert on keyboards and Thomas Hedlund on drums.
“This is one of the earliest songs we ever did and it took us about 20 years to get it right,” Mars said by way of introducing “If I Ever Feel Better/Funky Square Dance. “We played it badly for the first 17, 18 years. So we apologize if you heard it earlier than about 2017.”
It sounded great, was played theatrically, with Mars singing the final half on one knee to a mysterious black-cloaked figure in a white Venetian masquerade mask – death himself, perhaps?
The disco-ish “Trying To Be Cool / Drakkar Noir” led into “1901,” which remains one of Phoenix’s forever-thrilling songs. Then, with time running out, Mars took his usual clamber into the crowd – “I’ve got about five minutes to shake everybody’s hands,” he said – as the band played the instrumental “Identical (Reprise)” to the finish.
