Beck's Puppet Show Highlight Of 1st Annual Detourfest

10/09/2006 2:00 PM, Yahoo! Music
Lyndsey Parker

On Saturday, October 7, alternative newspaper the L.A. Weekly hosted the first annual Detourfest, a daylong festival of live music and art installations taking place over several closed-off blocks of the recently rejuvenated downtown Los Angeles neighborhood. Among the acts putting on memorable performances upon Detourfest's four stages were recently reunited retro powerpoppers Redd Kross; hard-charging desert rockers Queens Of The Stone Age; British electronic duo Basement Jaxx (flanked by a revolving-door lineup of mighty-lunged guest soul vocalists--including Lisa Kekaula of L.A. garage band the BellRays--a trio of kilt-clad brass musicians called the Atlantic Horns, and a gaggle of gorilla-suited backup dancers); the indie dance-punks known as !!! (or Chk-Chk-Chk, for the grammatically impaired); and the Tijuana-based Mextronica outfit Nortec Collective. However, the band that truly stole the show was not actually a real band at all, but an assortment of skillfully wielded marionettes that uncannily mimicked every move of headliner Beck and his flesh-and-blood bandmates.

Beck's arrival on the main stage on this full-moon evening was preceded by what appeared to be a pre-recorded video of a blonde-haired Beck puppet crooning "Loser," which was met with screaming delight by the thousands of festival-goers. However, once the real Beck appeared, the puppets continued to perform beside him onstage, expertly miming along to hits like "Mixed Bizness," "Girl," "Devil's Haircut," "Black Tambourine," a "Guero/Hell Yes" medley, and several tunes from Beck's new album The Information (including "Nausea," for which a puppet-only music video actually exists).

Beck has already taken his puppets on the road while playing other musicfests like the V Festival, Download Festival, Bonnaroo, and Pukklepop. So for this special hometown puppet show, starring not just an amazingly lifelike Beck puppet but also wooden recreations of all members of his entourage (including his manically dancing sidekick), no detail was overlooked. Even during the solo acoustic portion of the concert, when Beck's bandmates sat at onstage dinner table for a snack break (accompanying Beck by playing spoons), the puppets dined at a miniature dinner table of their very own. And when a group of dancers jumped onstage in furry bear suits, a bunch of handpuppet teddy bears appeared with the puppets as well.

A pre-encore intermission proved just as entertaining, as a short film was screened depicting the puppets enjoying the festival and then being attacked by fake rubber snakes in a segment titled Snakes On A Bus. After the real-life Beck band returned to conclude with "Where It's At" and "E-Pro," the puppeteers and their marionettes came out centerstage for their own ovation, which was, understandably, quite thunderous.

The ultimate message of Detourfest this year? After a long dormancy, downtown L.A. is hip again. And...puppets ROCK.

Photos from Detourfest 2006:
Beck
Queens Of The Stone Age
Redd Kross