Beck

Ah Beck.. Who doesn't love Beck.. He's so creative and fearless.. a great thinking man's rockstar.

So I saw him at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium last night. I had never been there before. Today I can say that the venue has now been added to my list of places I'd just assume not see any artist, no matter how good he or she is. The evening seemed to be a great experiment in how many people you could pack into an already huge space. Since we arrived merely on-time to see Beck (i.e. 2 hours after the show's first act started), we were relegated either to the far back of the flat arena space, or up in the sidemost nosebleeds. We chose the latter. That view allowed one to look down upon the lucky (or perhaps dedicated) masses who managed to stake themselves a 12"x12" claim of the concrete floor with too little room to stand much less dance. (Moo!)

I always wonder, in those scenarios, whether the artist has any control over (or cares about) the extent to which they pack a venue to the detriment of the fans. If any artist has ever said, "Hey man I'm [rockstar name here], and I won't play this place unless you cut down the ticket sales by at least 20%."

I'm not so naive that I don't realize that reducing the supply of tickets for such a popular performance would merely drive up the ticket prices and only allow the priviledged to gain entry. However, I just don't think there is any priviledge to seeing a show under those conditions.

In addition to the tight squeeze, venues this size tend to have trouble making the music sound very good. No matter how much money they pour into using the very best festival sound systems available, the concrete echoes just made it sound like a high school dance to me.

As much as I love Beck, and thought he and his band put on a great show, I still didn't feel like the experience was worth nearly what I've seen other less-popular artists do at much smaller venues. It's the price of fame I suppose. It's ironic that the artists working the hardest to bring their huge talents to the most people end up putting on shows that are arguably not worth seeing.

My advice to every artist that wants me to buy a ticket: Don't play any venue larger than The Fillmore.