Flying to Chicago today to see my dad in his house for the last time
He moves to the memory care clinic next week
Feeling quite a lot of feelings about all of it
Dad took me to my first Beck concert, at the Aragon Ballroom, on January 31, 2000
At the end, the drummer threw his sticks into the crowd
My dad, unprompted, got down on his hands and knees and hustled through the crowd to find and get the drumstick for me
I still have it
Bless that man
This was the set for that concert
It was incredible
No bootleg, so I suppose it will have to just live on in my memory
Just three months later, Beck experienced a personal trauma that changed him and his music forever
I feel lucky that I got to see Nineties Beck just before he vanished
Since there’s no bootleg of my first Beck concert, the live recording of his that I’ve listened to the most over the decades is this very similar set he did live on German TV and radio a few weeks prior:
