2003-01-06 | HANSEN, HUGH AND HANSON

Beck was on Austin City Limits the other night with the Flaming Lips as his backing band.

It was very enjoyable.

I loved it that he threw some songs in from Mutations.

I have never met anybody else who loves the album Mutations as much as I do. It's one of my favorites of all time.

I thought it was interesting to start off with Cold Brains instead of something predictable like Where It's At, etc.

One thing that was weird was that-maybe I'm reading too much into this-but it seemed like Beck was being a little mean to Wayne Coyne, leader of the Lips.

Wayne was doing a lot of things you don't normally see at a concert, but nothing totally crazy. I thought it was all cool.

But Beck would keep giving him a sort of "stink eye" over his shoulder, like "what are you doing?"

You don't hire a band like them as your back up band and get surprised when they get all artistic on you.

Wayne had these huge spotlights, and he was holding them up to light up Beck, and twisting them around, etc.

At one point when Beck was doing a funky dance, Wayne was right behind him with the spotlights, and when Beck turned around, he held his hands to his side in confusion, as if to say again "what the hell are you doing, man?"....and then he held his hands up as if to say "dude....calm down with the lights". I'm not exaggerating, I don't think. He was being weird. Kind of a dick actually. It hurts me to say.

I guess he forgets his early days when he used to bring leaf blowers on stage and stuff like that.

I thought Beck looked kind of irritated when Wayne was on the megaphone, too, but who knows what was going through his head?

After the show, they had a little 5 minute interview snippet with Beck, and they asked him about selecting the Flaming Lips as his backing band.

He explained why he had chosen, and then he started to talk about how at the beginning of the tour, he'd be doing these really "personal, heartfelt songs", and afterwards Wayne would pick up the megaphone and say "nice one, Beck!" or something like that, and Beck seemed to be bothered by this.

Simple question......

If you wanted this to be your "serious" tour, why would you hire the Flaming Lips as your backing band this time? You should've hired them for your kerrazay tour.

And why would you still do songs from Odelay, if it's supposed to be all heartfelt and sentimental?

C'mon Beck. You used to be the king of avant garde, weirdness, fun, etc....

Don't get all Gallagher on us.

And I'm not talking about the balding/mullet guy who wears a beret and suspenders, and equips his audience with huge Glad bags for protection.

Lighten up, B.

I guess I'm thinking this because of Becks last name, but did you hear that one of the kids from Hanson is now married and has a kid?

Scary.

In other news........

I think Hugh Grant is an underrated actor.

I will never argue with you that he has done a lot of crappy movies, and made a lot of questionable decisions to even do certain films, but when he's on, he can be one of the most charming, and witty actors out there.

I agree that a lot of his roles are repetitive, but how can you see a film like About a Boy, and not respect his ability?

A couple of weeks ago, he was doing all the talk shows, and he was hilarious on there. You can tell that he is a naturally funny guy. To be able to trade blows with Conan O'Brien, you have to have some kind of repertoire.

I thought he was really great and humble on Inside the Actors Studio.

Only one thing struck me as weird.

At the end when the people in the audience ask questions, he was being really nice to the first couple of people, but when the third guy got up, he said "Hi" three times, and Hugh Grant never returned it with anything. Finally the guy just asked his question. Even when he said who he was and what he was doing at the actors studio, Hugh seemed disinterested.

I thought it was a weird turn after 55 minutes of consistently awesome behavior.

But yeah. I'm a Hugh Grant fan.

Yes...he's English...I get it. A lot of Americans play the same kind of character over and over again, and nobody says a thing, but I guess it's different if you're a simple English guy. Americas not ready for someone who's not trying to act zany all the time.

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