Photos by Tim Dwenger
Last Tuesday saw one of the summer’s hottest double bills hit Red Rocks Amphitheatre for the first of two nights. The weather was just about perfect, and The Rocks were full to the brim with fans of both Beck and Phoenix. While most were there to see the headliners, the crowd was fully tuned in when I walked in and Japanese Breakfast was on stage. While I saw the band on quite a few “best of” lists at the end of 2021, I have to admit, I hadn’t really given them a chance. Seeing them open up this show changed that for me and I’ve been diving into their catalog over the past few days. Do yourself a favor, and do the same.
Next up was Phoenix, and they came out of the gates charging with the lead track from the band’s 2009 breakthrough album Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, “Lisztomania”. Though I hadn’t spent much time with the band since their 2004 Astralwerks release Alphabetical, I was impressed with how their sound has evolved as they leaned heavily on Wolfgang tracks including “Lasso,” “Armistice,” and “Love Like a Sunset” (Parts I & II).
The band’s high energy, angular rock sound brought the crowd to their feet as the giant video screen came to life with some incredible high definition video footage. The most impressive of which took the audience on a surreal ride as the camera started focused on the hand of a man lying in a park and zoomed out until it was several million light years away. It then zoomed back in until it was seeing inside the cells of the man’s hand – all during the course of a single song. Talk about a lesson in perspective!
Phoenix ended their set with fan favorite “1901” followed by “Identical (reprise)” from their 2022 album Alpha Zulu and then the stage was set for the main event – in my eyes anyway – Beck!
As Phoenix had played through sunset, Beck took the stage under the cover of dark and made full use of the massive video screens that framed and backed the stage. Launching into “Devil’s Haircut,” the chameleon kicked off a stunning two hour set that took me down one memory lane after another.
“Que Onda Guero” and “Girl” took me back to the summer I met my wife, while the extended take on “Debra” reminded of my buddy who has done his rendition of this slow-jam at every late night party since I met him more than 15 years ago. “Loser” brought me back to college as it was in steady rotation on my radio show for quite a while. It’s pretty striking how ingrained Beck has become in our world (or at least my world) over the course of his 30 year career.
One of the highlights of this incredible performance was a two song mini-set of Sea Change material that included “The Golden Age” and one of my personal favorites, “Lost Cause.” As he introduced these songs, he revealed that the band on stage was the same band that he recorded the album with and, as a result, “this is the best you are ever gonna hear them sound!”
After the blistering “Sexx Laws” and a fiery “E-Pro” ended the set, Beck was joined by Phoenix for the Red Rocks debut of their collaborative single “Odyssey” before ending the night with a massive sing-along on “Where It’s At.” I’ve seen Beck at Red Rocks before, but this was, in my opinion, a far better performance. Maybe it was song selection, maybe it was crowd energy, maybe it was that incredible stage setup . . . likely it was all three. I’m just glad I got to experience it all!
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