#devilshaircut

(Hi!  It’s been awhile since I’ve used the Tumblr. But I rescued my password and here I am.  As I did a few years ago after Morning Phase tour, I'm going to listen through as many of the live versions of a song on the Colors tour to figure out what the band brought to these songs and how they grow across the tour.  This is more than anything a writing exercise for me, but also it brings me deeper into my favorite songs. - ed.) Join our Facebook group too please!

Comin' to town with the briefcase blues First up, I'm going to start with the omnipresent "Devils Haircut." Beck played "Devils" at all 59 main shows on the Colors tour, except the one night in San Francisco where they dropped all the main hits. It was the opening song at 48 of the shows.  (For this, I listened to 30 versions that I found on YouTube.)

lineup: 

Beck Hansen - vocals, electric guitar

Jason Falkner: electric guitar, backing vocals

Dwayne Moore: bass, backing vocals

Roger Joseph Manning Jr.: synthesizer, tambourine, backing vocals

Chris Coleman: drums

Cecilia Della Peruti: electric guitar, backing vocals

Alex Lilly: tambourine, keyboards, backing vocals

Jake Sinclair: acoustic guitar (?!), backing vocals

On stage, “Devils Haircut” continues to follow the basic template of the record, until the ending, in which they’ve added a quick live riff (that riff has been there since 2014 or so, this is not new anymore - I still LOVE this bit). At the beginning of this tour, the song stayed pretty much as they’d been doing it since 2014, except with no harmonica (Smokey used to drop in some harmonica turns) and with all the added backup voices boosting Beck. Here is a good example of how they did the song early on the tour.  It is from the In Bloom Festival in Houston.  Beck gives a shout-out to Grizzly Bear in the middle of the song; he rarely talks or adlibs over “Devils Haircut.”

The band did add a short droning intro to the song which you can here there too.  From the Montreal show on (July 10) this was expanded further to include a slo-mo clip of Beck going “deviiiilllllssss haaairrcuuuut.”  This intro is cool and makes the song, and start of the show, all the more dramatic, especially how the famous riff blasts out of it.

Also, during the Europe tour in June, Roger started adding some electro synthesizer effects, which I liked. With the extra added guitarists, Jason was open to add more noodling lead guitar licks throughout the song’s sections, which I’m not sure I dig that much. The song seems to have drifted a little from its tight punk chaotic heart to something a little more intricate on this tour. It’s still energetic, just in a different way!  Jake plays acoustic guitar on this song, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out why or what he’s adding: it’s quite inaudible under the electric guitars and mad rhythm section. Alex mostly shakes a tambourine, but during the middle breakdown section, I noticed her adding keyboards a few times.

This version from the Riot Fest in Chicago puts the longer intro on display, and is a good example of how they did the song on the latter half of the tour.  Strangely, Beck also sings a bit of The Creation’s “Making Time” at the end.  He did this quick reference throughout the summer, but every other instance I am aware of, it was during “The New Pollution” instead.  For some reason tonight, he slipped it into “Devils Haircut.”  Also, this recording shows off the group vocals a bit -- you can barely hear Beck at all.