Ask any music lover under 25 if they’re into Beck and you’ll get a, “Oh yeah, Loser baby…Devil’s Haircut… totally….” Well, before 1994 if you mentioned ‘Beck’ to a music lover they would know you are talking about Beck as in Jeff Beck –the guitar hero spawned in the same Yardbird swamp as Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton. And although he never achieved the massive commercial success of Page and Clapton, he achieved a respectable level of success and an unquestionable level of critical success, not to mention unflinching admiration from guitar players and lovers worldwide. He continues to play and record with top players like Vinnie Colaiuta and eagerly snags young talent like bass wunderkind Tal Wilkenfeld.
My personal introduction to Jeff Beck comes with one hello-Mr. Toad-wild-ride.
I was about 15, and my buddies and I were serious Led Zeppelin fanatics -all thinking we were ultra cool as everyone else in school was listening to schlop 40. But we knew better and wore our allegiance to the mighty Zep like a youthful arrogant badge and thought Jimmy Page glittered with goldschlager.
So we catch wind of a benefit concert he was going to be doing in L.A. – two nights at the Forum with ‘the other Yardbirds dudes’ Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton. Of course we knew Clapton -thought he was a dopey old fart that lost his cool after Cream, and we knew just a little about Beck. And you know… we couldn’t Google him, so it was all about seeing the dark wizard come out of hiding after the Mighty Zep bit the hydrogenated dust. We had no car and no money and grieved at the thought of our icon playing just a few miles up the road from our San Diego home without us there to witness the unwitnessable.
So we had this friend with at least one screw loose that volunteers- “Hey, I have this rich uncle who lives in L.A. and keeps drawers full of money. I’ll ask my mom to take me up for a visit, I’ll steal some cash, go buy the tickets and we’ll figure out how to get up there.”
Riiiiight.
“No, dudes, I’m serious. I steal cash every time I go up there. He’ll never know.”
So we said, yeah. Cool. Go for it. We believe you. Totally. And he left that weekend.
So lo and be-freakin-hold he comes back the following Monday with THREE GOLDEN TICKETS to see the master wizard.
My best friend and I screamed and cried like little girls.
After we came down off the ceiling, I said the smartest thing I ever said in my life: “I’ll hold on to these”.
A week later our beloved thief came back in tears saying, “Dudes, I got busted, I gotta get those tickets.” Fortunately when he came and broke the news my best buddy was with me, and the thief-turned-crybaby was outnumbered. So we were like, “Ahhh… NO.”
He begged and pleaded as his mom sat out in the car and waited and we finally convinced him to tell Mommy we JUST DON’T HAVE THEM. And he went away. Shoo. Scat. Be gone. And we breathed a deep, deep sigh of relief.
So it actually worked in our favor as we realized pretty quickly the third ticket was…our ride!!! Hello!!
We quickly found a willing 16 year old, vehicle-enabled friend to take us. Problem was, it was on a school night. But we begged. And pleaded. Got permission. And waited… And a few months later, we were off. My two friends in the front of the pickup truck and I in the back, screaming up the 5 to become part of history…
WHAM!!!
Our idiot driver friend rear-ends somebody and totals his truck. I mean totaled. Nobody was hurt but the truck was toast and we weren’t going anywhere.
We were panicked. Not about my friend, or his truck. No, we were panicking about the fact we were going to miss the show. So as the cops and tow trucks pulled my friend’s truck to the side of the freeway, my buddy and I walked off -desperate for some way to keep going.
So being the smart kids we were, we walked from the nearest off ramp to a gas station and found a phone booth. On the inside of the phone booth was written in sharpie ‘CAB’ and a phone number. Of course we called it.
“Look for two black guys in a red GTO”, said the deep and mysterious voice on the other end. So wait and look we did.
Half an hour later a red GTO pulls up, a black dude with a giant fro rolls down the window and says, “You going to the forum?”
Gulp. We had no choice.
“Fourteen dollars.”
That was about all the cash we had but it was fine with us.
It turns out the “two black guys” in the GTO were a husband and wife that made a few extra bucks being a cab on call. I guess. That’s what they told us anyway. And they seemed cool enough and actually a little concerned. As we got close to the Forum they asked, “How y’all getting home?”
“Um… hitchhiking?”
“Well, be careful man, that’s not a good area around there…”
Whatever. The forum was in sight and we were there.
So we found our seats (we were way too exhausted to do the whole ‘rush the stage’ thing) and settled into a little Clapton and hoped he would play some Cream. I don’t remember much other than Joe Cocker singing “You Are So Beautiful” and thinking that Clapton was still pretty good.
And then Jeff Beck came out.
It was a very similar reaction to when I played with Tal wilkenfeld -not knowing what to expect, not really expecting much but then just getting blown away.
My buddy and I kept looking at each other in amazement. “Duuude!! This guys shreds!!!”
And then we saw Jimmy Page and our lives were complete. He even played ‘Stairway’. Oh yes, we were there –we were on that Stairway. Problem is, that Stairway wasn’t heading back to San Diego. We had to get home –we had school tomorrow.
Needless to say, the hitchhiking thing didn’t pan out as we began to fear for our lives. So my buddy ended up calling his Dad who drove up from San Diego at 1 AM and let me tell you –he was not happy. No more school night concerts for my buddy.
The next day at school -on two hours sleep- boy did we have the story of a lifetime.
But wait, it’s not over.
A few days after the show I go over to my friends house and there he is sitting in his room with his Dad’s stack of albums. He lifts up Jeff Beck’s Wired album and says, “Dude, you gotta hear this…” Led Boots was on, and we were off.
A few days after that I see my friend at school and he says, “I had a wild dream last night”.
“What?”
“Well, I met Jimmy Page. I told him I went to the Beck/Page/Clapton concert and it was great and everything but…I told him, I hate to say it, Jeff Beck was better.”
“Yeah? What he say to that?”
“He is better”.
This reminds me of an experience I had about a decade later. We had saved up our measly gigging earnings for one summer adventure which was to take the Train to the LA Coliseum and see Mark Knofler on his Brothers in Arms tour. Somewhere as we entered Orange County the train just stopped. Turned out there was another train way ahead of us that had hit a horse trailer and so none of the trains were moving. After a half hour wait in one station, we slowly rolled to the next (and waited another half hour). We were getting antsy that our summer adventure was getting ruined. We decided at the next station, one of us would try to hail a cab while I would find a phone and get a cab to meet us at the next station. I ran to a phone while my buddy ran for a cab. What I didn’t realize was the horse situation had been cleared up, and our Amtrak was just going to do a touch and go at this station to make up for lost time. I hung up and ran. My buddy slipped in the train as the door closed. I ran up to the door – I could see my 3 friends and a conductor all nodding and signaling that they were going to stop the train. I followed along on the platform and it seemed like they were slowing down to let me on. At the last instant I grabbed the steel handle by the door and the train TOOK OFF. I just had this handle to hold onto, and there was nowhere really to put my feet. I kind of edged my feet around the back corner of the car so I didn’t swing out. Its 7 minutes from the Anaheim station to the Fullerton station. Those trains go fast. Every time you go over a street you get a bump – signal lights are going off and cars are honking (I guess some people saw me). The Amtrak horn is enough to kill you. As we pulled into the Anaheim station there was a train going the opposite way about 5 feet from my head. As we stopped at the station, I still had to bolt all the way around the train to the other side and get on the platform without getting hit. I glanced under the wheels for a sec and decided against that (touch and go). I had to go for the front of the train since it was closer. Around the front – the train luckily did not start up on me. Up on the platform – in the first door. I had to go about 4 cars back to get to my friends. It was an indescribable reunion. I was so freaked out I just lied down on a seat and curled up in a ball. The concert was great – we only missed the beginning. I did not ride or go near a train for 10 years after that. I still get nervous when I hear one of those Amtrak horns.
That’s crazy dude… That redefines the term ‘white knuckle grip’ for sure…