Just got back from the fabulous Beck-umentary experience (see previous post). What a whirlwind day. It’s about a 3.5 hr drive to Bend, but when you have free tickets, backstage passes and the opportunity to meet one of your heroes, it it makes for a great trip. Didn’t hurt having a lady love to come with me (and we were able to get her backstage as my “camera person” so she got to meet Beck too).

First off, the show was awesome. Beck played a bunch of hits, as well as a cover of Bob Dylan’s “Leopard Skin Pill Box Hat” which set me hopping with glee and caused the audience to do that, “What’s this song?” routine I outlined in a previous post. But everything was amazing the whole way through. I can’t say it enough, there are some bands/artists that simply know how to put on a good show and Beck is one of them. This is my third time seeing him, each time has been awesome.

But onto the main event, meeting the man. We got to Bend at about 4, grabbed an early supper and got to the amphitheater well in time for our appointment to meet with Brendan Joyce, the rep from Universal Music Group who set this thing up through KNRK 94.7 FM.

We proceeded to the backstage area (which featured a “game area” including foos ball and ping pong tables) and met with Jessica, who’s been Beck’s tour manager for four years (previously she’s been with Godsmack, Aerosmith, Smashing Pumpkins and — for four days — R. Kelly, among others). Jessica gave us a bit of a tour: we got to go on stage and see the set-up, including taking photos in front of Beck’s guitars, which thrilled me to no end.

Eventually, Beck came out from his dressing “room” with his assistant and we found a nice vista to stand in front of for the interview, which was fabulous and ranged from Beck’s influences to the future of music and some almost metaphysical discussion about music. I can’t wait to get the video back to show people (more on that in a sec).

After the interview, we went out in to the audience to see the opening act, Cold War Kids. I’d seen them just a few months ago at Sasquatch Festival. I’d been really excited to see them at the time, but didn’t think they had a good set at Sasquatch and was disappointed. Today they exceeded expectations and were rather fun.

Their show also gave us the chance to check out the amphitheater in Bend a bit. It’s fairly new (like 5 years old) and features a decent amount of the ever-important porta-potties as well as better concessions than most venues. I eventually grabbed a couple of tacos from a taco truck that looked (and tasted) like it could’ve been a Portland neighborhood taco truck. It was refreshing (pun intended) to be at a show and not have to deal with the chain concessionaires and their usual wares of chicken strips, cold hamburgers, dogs and pizza.

Anyway, after Cold War Kids we went back stage again for a bit and took some footage of the crew putting finishing touches up, then I raced to the photographer’s pit where I was allowed to film three songs for the Beck-umentary.

Because Beck’s management needs to okay all the video, they took the camcorder away from me at this point to scrape off the footage for approval (they’ll get it back to me later this week when it’s been okayed), so I don’t have anything except some of the photos (more to come once we pull some more off the other camera). Hold tight though, I think the documentary footage, interview and three songs are going to knock your socks off. As soon as I have it all together it’ll be posted.

All in all, the whole day was certainly an amazing opportunity I won’t ever forget; I couldn’t believe how great everyone on Beck’s team was (including Beck), they were very friendly and courteous to this fan.

Many thanks
Just want to thank everyone involved in this. Extra thanks go, of course, to KNRK who made this possible, and to Brendan Joyce at Universal Music Group for helping to put this together. On the ground at the show, people I directly interacted with were Beck (duh), Jessica his tour manager, Michelle his assistant, and the production manager and stage managers (one was Brian, the other Mark, can’t remember which was which). Special thanks to Kendra for joining me on this journey.

One Response to “Beck, post-game commentary”

1. Candy Says:
   August 31st, 2008 at 8:44 am

   What an amazing opportunity. I can’t wait to see your video!

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