SPILL LIVE REVIEW: BECK & PHOENIX w/ WEYES BLOOD @ BUDWEISER STAGE, TORONTO

BECK & PHOENIX w/ WEYES BLOOD

@ BUDWEISER STAGE, TORONTO

SEPTEMBER 3, 2023

With only a week left of the Summer Odyssey Tour, Toronto was treated to over three decades worth of Beck tunes, and fresh new hits from Phoenix, who recently released the album Alpha Zulu.

Weyes Blood opened with a lovely set of chamber pop music. Wearing a white cape dress, The L.A.-based musician played “A Lot’s Gonna Change” and “Grapevine” before playing “Everyday” on the piano.

This would be a great artist to see at a small intimate venue where the audience can really appreciate the gothic stage design and lighting, as it really set the tone for her soul-stirring music. She ended the set with “Movies” from her breakout album Titanic Rising as she threw flowers into the crowd.

Indie-pop band Phoenix was next on stage and immediately got the audience’s blood pumping with “Lisztomania” off  2009’s Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. Their set consisted of several electronic  elements that had the crowd dancing and singing along passionately. Most of their songs were very cheerful and snappy, which made moodier numbers such as “Winter Solstice” and “Rome” really memorable.

The band ended with the iconic track “1901” and then played a melancholic reprise of “Identical” while Thomas Mars crowd surfed in the audience, blowing kisses to everybody and thanking them. He made his way past the floor all the way up to the 400-seats shaking hands with fans before crowd-surfing his way back to the stage.

Beck opened with “Devils Haircut”, “Mixed Bizness” and “The New Pollution”. His setlist was incredibly diverse, with headbangers such as “Soul of a Man”, catchy dance songs like “Dreams” and of course, his most famous song “Loser” which had the audience going crazy. Halfway through the show, Beck slowed things down with acoustic numbers “The Golden Age” and “Lost Cause” as concertgoers lit up the venue with phone lights and lighters. Fans clapped along to the beat while he performed the harmonica track “One Foot in the Grave” for which he thanked them for their spontaneous congregation and went on to say that during their last tour in 2019, Toronto was by far the best audience.

“There are certain shows that just stick in your mind and never forget and that was the one we played last time. Thank you all for that.”, he said before playing the fan favourite “E-Pro”.

Phoenix came back on stage with Beck to perform their song “Odyssey” which was co-written for this tour and according to Beck, will never be performed again. They capped the night off with “Where It’s At” with Weyes Blood and opener Sir Chloe joining the co-headliners on stage for an epic dance party.

(Photography by Cory Barter)

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