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"As downcast as his forthcoming album Sea Change is, the inimitable funk-folkie Beck was up to some typical mischief last night in San Francisco.\r\n&amp;quot;I may ruin my career tonight,&amp;quot; he warbled, delaying his first song fifteen minutes or more as he made up silly lyrics on the spot, fiddled with his harmonica rack and rambled at length about Yanni being a guilty pleasure. His doting fans, who snatched up tickets to the singer&amp;apos;s brief warm-up tour via his Web site, would have tolerated just about anything.\r\nBeck&amp;apos;s family background in absurd conceptual art was in full effect at the 1,000-seat Palace of Fine Arts Theater, where he interrupted somber songs for comic forays into death metal and stomped out his harmonica part on &amp;quot;One Foot in the Grave&amp;quot; like a Jewish groom on a glass at a wedding.\r\nThat image might not be so funny to Beck, whose Sea Change chronicles his deep despair following a break-up with his longtime girlfriend. The set list featured a handful of the glum but gorgeous new songs, with self-explanatory titles such as &amp;quot;Lost Cause&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;Lonesome Tears.&amp;quot;\r\nMuch of the show drew from 1998&amp;apos;s Mutations, for which Sea Change is emerging as a companion album of sorts. Both are reflective, deeply personal and surprisingly moving, given the style-skewering artist&amp;apos;s characteristic antics. Dressed in a funereal black jacket and a wrinkled pink dress shirt, the diminutive performer perched on a stool at center stage, surrounded by an array of quirky instruments -- a harmonium, a celesta, a boxy Roland drum machine mounted like a one-legged robot. When he finally got down to business, he opened on acoustic guitar with &amp;quot;Cold Brains,&amp;quot; from Mutations.\r\nRecalling his teenage infatuation with classic roots music and the &amp;quot;gutbucket&amp;quot; country blues, he played mature, quietly eerie versions of Hank Williams&amp;apos; &amp;quot;Lonesome Whistle&amp;quot; and Skip James&amp;apos; &amp;quot;Devil Got My Woman.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Bluebird at my window,&amp;quot; he mused wistfully on the new song &amp;quot;Guess I&amp;apos;m Doin&amp;apos; Fine,&amp;quot; which didn&amp;apos;t seem quite so sure as the title. It was the kind of straightforward symbolism Beck usually has about as much use for as Woody Guthrie needed sequins.\r\nMulti-instrumentalist Smokey Hormel joined Beck onstage for several songs, beginning with the acoustic Led Zeppelin-ish &amp;quot;Bottle of Blues.&amp;quot; The toys at his disposal seemed to make Beck restless, and he began milling around among them, idly tinkling a melody on the celesta that soon morphed into an impromptu verse or two of Prince&amp;apos;s &amp;quot;Raspberry Beret.&amp;quot;\r\n&amp;quot;You&amp;apos;re going to have to feed me a lot of peanuts,&amp;quot; he warned as audience members hollered out one request after another. Whatever his frame of mind, Beck seems incapable of sustaining the solemnity that defines some of his best songs.\r\n&amp;quot;I&amp;apos;m going to stop being goofy now,&amp;quot; he announced, then proceeded to muck around with adjustments on a microphone stand like a roadie Charlie Chaplin. But the ensuing song, a version of &amp;quot;Nobody&amp;apos;s Fault But My Own&amp;quot; on which he wheezed out his own droning accompaniment on the harmonium, was well worth the wait: As he repeated the maudlin refrain, he seemed to lose himself in it, finally breaking through to a state of raw candor that was, for the moment, completely irony-free.\r\nA few minutes later, Beck the imp was back, goofing on the faux funk of &amp;quot;Nicotine and Gravy,&amp;quot; fidgeting with the tempo of the drum machine, poking out indifferent solos on an electric piano. One encore -- a euphoric car crash of beats and samples wrung from a purple plastic toy keyboard -- stepped up the hijinks another notch.\r\nBut the others -- the Velvet Underground&amp;apos;s gentle &amp;quot;Sunday Morning,&amp;quot; which he played on celesta, and an appealing duet with Hormel on the Everly Brothers&amp;apos; &amp;quot;Sleepless Nights&amp;quot; -- made it clear Beck&amp;apos;s upcoming tour (with the Flaming Lips as his backup band) will focus on his newfound humility. Apparently, it&amp;apos;s a sea change for him."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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