Beck and Jenny Lewis – First show at Club Nokia

Club Nokia opened last night, and a lot of lucky radio listeners and LA bloggers got the chance to test out the bar VIP style. The bar is very chic, somewhere I’d definitely feel out of place on a regular night (ok I did last night too) but the drinks were stiff and the place had a nice comfortable feel to it.

The venue is great, I heard two maintenance guys (well they were dressed like maintenance guys) talking and one said “it’s like watching a show in your living room.” The sound was great, moreso for Jenny Lewis than Beck, but he does that marbles in the mouth vocal thing so you can’t really fault the sound system for that.

Really the best mix in the venue can be heard in the men’s room.. they pipe in the concert audio to the men’s room speakers, and I’m not sure why other places don’t do that.

The show was great, Jenny Lewis got things started with a down home acoustic vibe with her band complete with an Echos era David Gilmour looking “amplified acoustic” player. Beck ignored all the rules of cool performance by opening his set with Loser, which told me that this was going to be a great set, and it was. Lots of old, lots of new. It’s hard to believe Beck’s been around as long as he has, and it’s easy to forget all of the great songs he’s written over the years, but it all clicks when you see him live. He’s not doing the Odelay era white suit dance machine schtick, or the Mutations era folk singer bit, he’s doing the “used to turn on a leafblower on stage in Silver Lake slacker moonboots” deal that we all fell in love with in the first place.

A round of applause to Goldenvoice for putting this together, everyone looked like they had a great time. Now if I can just get my hands on some STP tickets….