Happy Birthday Beck! Celebrate Alt-Rock’s Favorite Experimenter With This 2006 Concert
Photos by Matt Winkelmeyer, Jerod Harris/Getty Music Features Beck
Whether he’s exposing the depths of his soul in a breakup song or just getting weird in the studio, Beck is always an interesting character to observe. We loved him in the ’90s for pushing genre boundaries and redefining what a singer/songwriter can be. We love him now because he still does. He definitely grew up—he now has two children, even more Grammys and more than a dozen studio albums. But listen to even his wonky most recent album Colors, and you’ll hear the same childlike amusement that shines through on his more experimental efforts like Mutations and Midnite Vultures.
Today (July 8) is Beck’s birthday, so why not celebrate with a concert? This intimate show was taped in October 2006 at the Knitting Factory in Brooklyn. A much younger and shabbier Beck jams out to groovier cuts like “Scarecrow” and “Nausea” and slows it down with Sea Change sad songs like “Guess I’m Doing Fine” and “Paper Tiger.”
Read: The 30 Best Breakup Albums of All Time
Beck is on tour now through the fall with Spoon and Cage The Elephant. Find those dates here. He has also announced a new album out this year, Hyperspace, but there’s no release date yet. Listen to the first single here.
Watch a selection of songs from the Knitting Factory show below via the Paste vault, or watch the whole thing over on our YouTube page. Find our picks for the 20 best Beck songs (and a breakdown of the coinciding lyrics) here.