Dear Mrs Hanson,
I'm writing this with a rather pressing question in mind. What on Earth has happened to your son? Because from where I was sitting on Saturday night, I would suggest he's rather troubled. Heart broken even.
To be honest, I've not seen Beck for a while, what with dealing with my own personal earthquakes. However, we did run into each other in Ireland a couple of years back and he was on tremendous form. He'd bought along his new lady - Winona I think was her name - and to celebrate, he did his dazzling thing on-stage like you wouldn't believe. Those crazy intergalactic pop numbers were shot through in mind-boggling style with the scintillating force of his personality.
However, the other night it seemed that somewhere along the line, Beck had taken a hazardous turn. He walked on, and was clearly carrying far more that the weight of his guitar on those maudlin, black-suited shoulders. True, that dashing ice cream cone of a golden mop was still in place, but the smile was severed and cracked.
And the music? Well, gone were the dense ultra-sophisticated anthems of old, those Technicolor thunderballs. Instead, your son practically ripped his soul out before our eyes, rolling out one desolate, resigned epitaph after another. 'MTV Makes Me Wanna Smoke Crack' was nowhere to be seen, of that you can be sure Mrs Hanson.
I suspect a woman is involved. Take 'Guess I'm Doing Fine' and all this talk of tears and "leaving the past behind". Even as his luxurious, beaten baritone echoed around the salubrious Royal Albert Hall, we were all cut down by how turbulent his experience seems to have been. 'It's All In Your Mind' and 'Lonesome Tears', however, were something else on the battered stakes. Alarm bells were ringing in all corners of my head as he recounted what I assume were funereal tributes to his lost love.
Amongst the sorrow and emotionally drunken, dark confessionals was a touching 'Lost Cause', 'Nobody's Fault But My Own' and 'Golden Age', which were actually bettered by a stunning cover version. He took on 'Do You Realize??', which is by Wayne's boys, The Flaming Lips, I believe. And with lines like "do you realize, that everyone you know, someday will die", there really was no way back for him or us.
The only time the black cloud lifted was when he played with a combusting drum machine on 'Where It's At' and a magical 'Debra', and also bottlenecking a nostalgic, visceral, you might say, tear through 'Loser'. And it was good to see your beautiful boy smiling and making jokes again. Albeit briefly, we were reminded of days gone by and his explosive other incarnation.
But then it hit me. Maybe it's a good thing, you know, this troublesome phase, this upset. Because I don't believe I've really ever seen Beck as alive as he was on Saturday. Gone were the trappings, the whole impenetrable concept, the irony, the artifice. He was naked, alone and totally disarming. In fact, I really enjoyed it.
Beck's a talented boy, you must be very proud of him. Oh and when you next see him, tell him I know how it feels...
Best wishes to you both,
