Last night Beck performed at the United Palace Theater. This is the fourth time Ive seen him and though I enjoyed the Guero tour perhaps a bit more - nothing will ever beat the incredible birds eye view of Beck and his whole band playing several entire songs on nothing but a table of half-empty and half-filled glasses - and I loved The Information tour's puppet show, Beck never disappoints.

The light show on this, the Modern Guilt tour, was reminicent of the light show of Radiohead's Hail the Thief tour but they definitely did different things with the set up. I kind of wish the whole thing had been more cohesive but thats just me, a big fan of Sonic Vision. Beck is a truly talented guy, despite being a Scientologist, and he does an excellent job selecting his backing band for there is an energy on stage that feels very comfortable, not as if theyre doing the audience a favor but as if theyre saying, "We made this for you." Ive had the pleasure of meeting some of his bandmates at SNL a year or so ago and they were just as nice and excited to meet me, as a fan, as I was to meet them and thats a great experience to have at a show.

Anyhow, he even had a female guitarist this time around and her presence was great as well. They all lined up with synth boxes and other musical gadgets of which I do not know the name and played "Hell Yes" and "Black Tambourine" completely in beats and beeps which, though my concert companion thought was kind of lousy, I really enjoyed. Altogether a great show, he even opened with a song he openly hates: Loser, as kind of a nice gesture to the crowd, getting it out of the way so that even he could have a great time as the performance went on.