Staff Editor on October 1st, 2018

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Beck was all smiles at the Hollywood Bowl on Friday night, happy to finally be back home after a year and a half touring behind his 13th album, “Colors.” The night was full of anecdotes, from his days roaming record shops like Rockaway, Aarons, Peaches and Music Plus — where he recalled watching X perform through the window — to memories of living on pre-gentrified Silver Lake Boulevard with truck-driving, speed-bingeing neighbors (the inspiration for “Truckdrivin Neighbors Downstairs”).

Beck essentially gave a geography lesson full of L.A. references throughout the night, explaining song sources that touched all points of the city. After “Qué Onda Güero,” he name-checked Boyle Heights, receiving an overwhelming cheer from the entire audience. He then introduced “Deborah,” a song about a girl in Glendale, which he performed acoustically and transitioned into a cover of Prince’s “Raspberry Beret.” Prince, he said, was the first show he ever saw at the Bowl. Sharing some enthusiasm for L.A.’s weird history before “Hollywood Freaks,” he explained that people think people from L.A. are freaks because of the “industry” but, in fact, L.A. has been freaky since way back. For example, they used to have camel races for fun. (This, in fact, occurred at a race track where Exposition Park sits now as well as in early iterations of the Rose Parade that pitted camels against elephants.)

Beck’s band came out wearing masks of his face, which was funny, and they played excellently, with quite a few notable members like guitarist Jason Falkner, Gothic Tropic’s Cecilia Della Peruti, Alex Lilly, Jake Sinclair (who produces Panic At The Disco among others), drummer Chris Coleman (Chakah Khan, Prince), Roger Manning Jr. (Jellyfish) and Dwayne Moore (Pharrell, N.E.R.D.). He also brought out Fred Martin and the TL Barrett Youth Choir for Christ for a couple songs, which elevated “Like a Ship” to something very special. When he got around to introducing the backing band during the encore, they jammed a little medley of Rolling Stones, New Order and Chic. The show ended show with reprise of his classic, “Where It’s At.” Also, he had the audience sing “Happy Birthday” to St. Vincent’s Annie Clark, who DJ’d before his set under the name St. Vicious.

Photos by Annie Lesser