Beck eclectic, forward-thinking

Shout “Bottles and cans, clap your hands!” if you were at the Huntridge Theater in February 1997, during the peak of Beck’s “Odelay”-ity.

Beck is the rare Life Is Beautiful act who can dip into that “before you were born” stuff, considering it’s been 20 years since “Loser.” Or that the dilapidated Huntridge is now the object of a rescue mission helmed by two of the Life Is Beautiful partners, Rehan Choudhry and Joey Vanas.

At 43, Beck (Hansen) is still an eclectic and forward-thinking artist. Last year he put out “Beck Hansen’s Song Reader,” new songs that came only in the form of sheet music, which you could only hear by playing them yourself.

He won’t make you work so hard Saturday, judging by recent performances that include some of those new songs as well as old favorites such as “Devil’s Haircut” and “Where It’s At.”

And Beck seems to have a penchant for playing offbeat venues, if you consider he was the rare rocker to do a concert in the old Tropicana showroom, or that last month he played a drive-in movie in Barstow, Calif.

— Mike Weatherford