Moodster in a Pool of Reverb and Stage Gaffes

In the world of New York theater, new stage productions often start with trial runs and workshopping in New Haven, Connecticut, before the polished item is brought to Broadway. On Tuesday night at the Santa Barbara Bowl, Santa Barbara was a kind of musical New Haven for a night, home to the ambitious but peril-fraught staging schemes of Beck’s new “Ride Lonesome” tour, launched in our town, bumps and all.

This was night one of the tour, and let’s just say there were wrinkles to iron out. Beck brought handfuls of good ideas and a boatload of gumption to the concert staging, but the logistics of who and what went where and when didn’t always work out. Long, awkward lapses followed as the overworked roadies and stagehands scrambled to put into place a different stage set for almost every tune. 

Those of us who caught and were duly wowed by David Byrne’s wild, smooth-running concert on the Bowl stage recently couldn’t help but compare. Beck’s new concert concept is a grand, novel twist on tired-and-true rock concert formats, but its time has not quite come. As he told the audience, after a series of mishaps and near-misses, “we’re figuring it out. That’s the charm of doing things in a different way.”

All that said, there is plenty to sink into on his unabashedly moody new album — which accounted for much of the night’s setlist. (That approach, of leaning heavily on a new album, was also a feature of the stunning Big Thief concert at Libbey Bowl last Sunday.) 

From the earliest moments in the concert, he drew us into the moody blue and lonesome atmosphere of his new record, and songs from his similarly introspective album Sea Change, in elaborate visual settings — a decrepit rustic house structure, a desert silhouette backdrop — which felt like video productions brought on stage, in the physical and real-time plane. His new songs tap into the melancholia muse and remind us of parallels like Gregg Allman’s classic “Melissa” and Elliott Smith’s expert brooding. 

Other staging setups, between the fumbling moments, included a white-paneled, living-room-like module where a makeshift “fiddle band” played a few tunes, and an epically long table — reminiscent of the poker-table vignette he cooked up at his 2012 Bowl show. Later, the band perched precariously on a skinny platform stage, making a joyous noise on back-songbook gems like “Where It’s At,” “Lost Cause,” and “Devil’s Haircut.” For dramatic effect, the last sight and sound we caught of Beck was his looming shadow on the screen as he stood solo in front of a spotlight and sang Daniel Johnston’s “True Love Will Find You in the End.” Yes, it will.

The usual rock-concert accouterments were noticeably absent from Beck’s current staging plan. In contrast to the elaborate drum and percussion layouts of recent Santana and Earth Wind & Fire concerts on this stage, drums were often played offstage, rolled on a platform for a token appearance, or reduced to a baby cocktail kit. Amplifiers were not allowed on the visible premises.

The crowd, or at least part of it, was getting restless. The party sitting behind us in the media row were guilty of loud and constant chatter, and advice for the star: “Okay, pick it up now! Lighten up.” Some left before the Beck hits arrived late in the show. The divided response was reminiscent of past Bowl shows like Neil Young’s great staging/concert in 2003, when the first part was taken up by his quirky rock opera Greendale. Folks were clamoring for Crazy Horse and some “rockin’ in the free world,” which they got, eventually.

[Click to expand] Beck, Santa Barbara Bowl, September 22, 2026 | Photo: Carl Perry

Some rock artists think more like fine artists, who generally work on new work to present, and don’t have to tap into a greatest hits jukebox. But pop music culture is its own world with its own rules and audience demands.

It should come as no great surprise that Beck arrives with surprises in tow, on records and in concerts. He often plays rock and roll about rock and roll, leaving us wondering about the true mind and soul behind it. Like David Byrne, he has always had a certain artistic detachment and maybe discomfort with the idea of earnest rockstar-hero mythology. Who else could get away with having the crowd heartily singing along with the refrain from his biggest hit, “Loser” — “I’m a loser baby/why don’t you kill me” — as if it were a jolly campfire song?

Art antics are afoot, for this art world-connected reluctant pop star. Therein lies part of his sneaky charm. In that light, 4,000-plus people at the Bowl that night played a part in an art-workshopping process, here on the Santa Barbara-New Haven Express.

It would be great to see it again, once finished.