Beck gathered a solid troupe of friends together at London’s Barbican on July 4th for his first-ever full live performance of the material from his 2012 sheet music collection, Song Reader. As Pitchfork reports, Jarvis Cocker, Franz Ferdinand, Beth Orton, Charlotte Gainsbourg, James Yorkston, Joan Wasser (a.k.a. Joan as Police Woman), Villagers’ Conor J. O’Brien, the Staves, Guillemots, Michael Kiwanuka and members of the Mighty Boosh all took turns onstage performing the songs with Beck. For the grand finale, the whole gang took the stage for the spooky stomper, “Rough On Rats.”
Beck will return to the U.S. by the end of the month to join Bob Dylan and Wilco at the Americanarama Festival at Jones Beach on July 27th.