Beck - Lonesome Tears - (Live Rock En Seine Festival, France, 27-08-2003)

2002-2003 Sea Change tours "Lonesome Tears" made its live debut on August 2 2002, in Seattle. Beck played it alone on the piano throughout his August solo acoustic tour (at 12 of the 20 shows), though a number of times he stopped it before finishing because he was not in the right mood for it. At the show I saw, he completed it, and really did seem affected by the song. On another show, he preceded it by saying "This one's a weeper," and he sounds kind of guilty about indulging in it. But he shouldn't...I don't think anyone minds! Beck and Smokey also played the song on KCRW in September. Next, Beck went on tour with The Flaming Lips as his band for the fall of 2002. And in many ways, "Lonesome Tears" was the highlight of their collaboration. They had this one down. The Lips progressive-rock abilities filled out all the strings, and the long coda was fantastic. This still seems to me to be a song Beck gets lost in while singing (in a good way, I mean). They did the song every night together. 2003 was another run of different legs: a quick trip to Australia/Japan with his old band, a solo acoustic run through Europe, and a summer festival circuit with a new band. "Lonesome Tears" was played at pretty much every show in this time. The song seems to be able to bounce between played solo and band (though band ones were most popular at this time).