The end of last week was rather uncomfortable, with everyone screaming crisis and Mercury in retrograde and freakishly warm (though beautiful) weather… I’d say the anxiety level in Manhattan was moving towards red. And the anxiety level is always pretty high here – kind of like how we call yellow lights “yellow,” but they are really orange. NYC has a color scale of its own. This city either creates or attracts some of the most neurotic people. I can attest to both.
But the trees are still green – just barely yellowing. I went up to Central Park Friday afternoon to commune with a few and they had very sweet things to say. I was able to hang out in the yellow and – I realized – wow – I was seeing Beck that night.
Going to concerts has changed as I’ve gotten older. I still get excited, but when I was younger I used to become delirious in the weeks surrounding a show – manic beforehand and then very depressed afterward. The worst was when I was thirteen and I saw Tom (childhood hero) Petty front row at Irving Plaza – once the glow of the ceremony faded I sunk into such severe postpartum that my family was ready to disown or at least evict me. My sister said I was acting like someone died and I remember my mom telling me I wouldn’t be allowed to go to concerts anymore if this is how I’d behave afterwards. But who can go back to high school life after Tom?
By the way this Dave Stewart portrait can be yours for a mere $3000/$4200 framed. Or just walk by the gallery on Bowery at Bleecker and blow kisses every morning like I do.
I eventually got over this sickness – the post-show blues, not the air kisses – by following Phish. After a Phish show there was always the next night’s show, so the mania just kind of escalated until replaced by exhaustion. And then I thought I should maybe go on my own tours…. (I’m not going to get into the “hiatus” or the “break-up” because there are some wounds time cannot heal. They are so getting back together anyway). So I was really excited to go and be a member of the audience for a change. And to be wowed. I was a little nervous that I had built up my expectations too much, but if anyone can annihilate expectations it’s Beck, the only person other than myself that I have ever wanted to be. Truly. I think we all have one person – or a few – who we need to get us through the dark ages of youth. If Tom, Beck, and Phish aren’t responsible for saving my life they at least deserve credit for saving my soul. And Beck is one of the few artists I can depend on not just for his artistry, but by going to a show I’m pretty much guaranteed transformation. (I’ve said it before: Radio City… Valentine’s Day 2000… the bed lowered from the ceiling… “Debra”… the song that made me a woman).
After a lovely dinner at Candle Café I headed up to United Palace, which is worth the trip itself. Here are some wise words from the interior:
I enjoyed MGMT’s opening set. I had never seen them before and they looked really excited to be opening for Beck as they walked across the stage, which made me smile. Rightfully so.
The stage design was very different from Midnite Vultures’ neon playfulness. That was a different era: no Bush, no war, no recession… slightly more ice cap. There was a bit more to celebrate back in 2000. At least on the surface. But Friday night was dark. I’m sure this was partly colored by the events of the week that I brought into the venue with me, but the album is called Modern Guilt, after all. As the band dove into “Devil’s Haircut” I felt like we were crouching underground. It all felt very close – the venue is intimate and we were close to the stage, but it felt like bomb shelter close. The stage was cluttered and several extremely large spotlights stooped over the band, watching closely – kind of like that little Pixar animated character that hops around before the movie begins. Like alien beings. Then they immediately went into “Girl,” which was an awkward, oddly beautiful contrast to the décor – awkward because of its buoyancy and its breath. It’s sparkle. And as they cracked into “Timebomb” I thought – “okay, this is really happening” – expectations were officially removed. Bravo.
As we entered the Modern Guilt songs the entire back wall of the stage ignited. Throughout the show these lights served as a conveyor belt sucking us deeper and deeper into this post-apocalyptic cave. The whole show had an overall heaviness to it – a weight – even during moments like “Loser,” which was awesome on the electric guitar (why is he married? not fair) and “Hell Yes,” performed on head sets and hand-held drum machines as you see here:
The show had a quiet intensity – an urgency – like a low voice that makes you lean in close before really speaking its mind. It was seductive in its own way – not like the “Debra” bed, but perhaps even more seductive in its subtly. The motion established in the beginning – that shocking intimacy and intentional understatement – lured me into the cave and then once I was close enough to realize I wasn’t breathing the mirror came out – the light images behind the stage shifted from dead branches to an anonymous crowd to our crowd as film crews wormed around for the duration of the show. The image that remained after the band’s final exit was this projection of hands seeming to want to claw through a glass box:
Apparently, like the branches and the ice caps, we aren’t immune. Even though we left happily humming the “na nas” of “E-Pro,” as I looked back at those hands I was struck by the fragility of the human race. Of life. Human hands created this masterpiece – the gorgeous church, the music, the set, the lights, the city, the clothing, the transportation waiting outside – and yet the impression of these human hands, like kindergarten finger-paintings – is so preciously delicate. We have left our mark… but is this it? Is this really the end of the show?
I felt like I had just taken a ride in a time machine/spaceship with that screen of lights serving as our windshield. It was like future retrospective of now, and I think that’s what was so striking about the show – its relevancy to this moment in human history. The industrial, salvaged feel of the set seemed to say, the apocalypse came, and here we are, picking up the pieces. Or so we hope. How beautiful and significant that hundreds of individual lights are needed to form the one image.
Okay, time for bed. I didn’t mean to get so carried away, and especially because I don’t believe in reviews. You shouldn’t either. So let’s hope they release this masterpiece on DVD.
Good night!
– Bob Dylan 
