Beck headlined the 2022 SXSW Music Festival in Austin, Texas with an acoustic performance on Saturday night at ACL Live at The Moody Theater. The setlist consisted of Beck classics, along with a few rarely played songs and a new original.
Beck’s concert followed his SXSW keynote address the day prior. He was accompanied by Austin-based pedal steel guitarist Jesse Ebaugh. According to the Austin Chronicle, Beck met Ebaugh in the early morning hours after seeing him perform with Weyes Blood at the Austin venue the Mohawk.
“My friend Jesse is over here,” the Chronicle reported Beck said from the stage on Saturday. “He’s a local. We met last night at two in the morning as you do in Austin and here he is. He learned my songs in about 25 minutes.”
The set began with “The Golden Age,” the opening track to 2002’s Sea Change, followed by a cover of The Korgis’ “Everybody’s Got to Learn Sometime.” A few songs later came “Canceled Check,” reportedly the first time Beck played the Mutations track since 2005. The performance also saw Beck’s first time publicly covering Hank Williams’ “I Heard That Lonesome Whistle Blow.” The other cover played in the main set was a version of Chris Bell’s “I Am The Cosmos.”
The latter part of the set included the live debut of a new original song purportedly entitled “40 Mermaids.” He prefaced the debut by noting he was only going to preview part of the song because he could not recall all of the lyrics. Beck also broke out the deep cut “Fume” for the first time since 2002. He attempted the Mutations song “Dead Melodies” for the first time since 2014, but abandoned it after struggling with the words.
The first of two encores kicked off with the Midnight Vultures favorite “Debra.” Beck then delivered the harmonica-driven “One Foot In The Grave.” The second encore was fitting Austin finale as Beck closed the show with a cover of Daniel Johnston’s “True Love Will Find You In The End.”
Watch last night’s Beck concert posted by thescenestar and Tom Gimbel below:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CbUCnIAp5N2/
https://www.instagram.com/p/CbUGXjqgc9a/
Setlist
Beck at ACL Live at The Moody Theater
- The Golden Age
- Everybody’s Got to Learn Sometime
- Rowboat
- Say Goodbye
- Canceled Check
- Guess I’m Doing Fine
- I Heard That Lonesome Whistle Blow
- Pay No Mind (Snoozer)
- Lazy Flies
- Nobody’s Fault But My Own
- Girl Dreams
- Hollow Log
- I Am the Cosmos
- Bottle of Blues
- Heart Is a Drum
- 40 Mermaids
- Lost Cause
- Asshole
- Fume
- Dead Melodies
- Sissyneck
- Country Down
Encore
- Debra
- One Foot In The Grave
Encore
- True Love Will Find You in the End
- Daniel Johnston
