The Unbearable Lightness of Being in the Room with Jeff Beck: A Tribute to the Late Guitar Hero

Jeff Beck in Los Angeles, 2022 (Photo: © Jerome Brunet)

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In tribute to Jeff Beck, Rock Cellar presents a column from renowned music journalist and author, Lonn M. Friend, recalling his experiences with the late guitar legend, who passed away unexpectedly on Jan. 10 at the age of 78.

It’s April 4, 2009, Cleveland, Ohio’s Public Hall, and this particular Saturday is alright for rocking, rolling, jamming, and inducting.  Elegantly appointed white satin cloth covered dinner tables populate the entire arena floor.  I’m seated in a riser about a five-iron from the stage in the company of 150 musicians, writers, radio personalities, friends and other disparate entities personally invited (and flown in on their dime) by Metallica to attend this evening’s ceremony designed to honor the Bay Area monsters of rock along with Run-DMC, Wanda Jackson, Spooner Oldham, Bobby Womack, DJ Fontana, Little Anthony & the Imperials, Bill Black, and last but light years from least, the Grand High Exalted Mystic Ruler of all twangy soundscapes between here and the outer realms of the Milky Way, Jeff Beck.  

Over the next four hours, the roof will be raised by several incredible performances, moving speeches and a historic six-string jam for the ages. Warmly recognized by his Yardbirds’ mate, Jimmy Page, Sir Jeff looks amused and partly uncomfortable.  “All this hoopla,” he’s probably thinking to himself. “Just hand me my Strat and let’s do this.” Enter the pantheon of players, lined up next to the Avatar for a “Train Kept a Rollin’” that brought every house down from Pittsburg to Pandora.  Page, Joe Perry, James Hetfield, Kirk Hammett, Rob Trujillo, Jason Newsted — so many weapons of axe destruction in apocalyptic unison.  There could have been fifty instruments competing for sonic attention. Didn’t matter. It was Jeff’s unique, unmistakable tone that sliced through the choreographed cacophony like a laser through soft tissue. 

Flash to Fiddler’s Green outside Denver, hot August night, 2016.  Buddy Guy delivers 45 minutes of charismatic vintage bluesy woozy; gets the sold-out amphitheater crowd nice & toasty for “The Revolution Will Be Televised,” which opens the immaculate, eclectic set.  Master of interpretation and six-string reimagination, time traveler, medulla unraveller, we are fixated on the pickless avatar, effortlessly shapeshifting his captivated audience into absolute bliss.  

Jeff Beck’s twenty-year publicist, Melissa Dragich, alerted the tour manager (a Rip Magazine reader) that this old Angeleno would be in the room with three locals in tow. The afterparty is intimate, maybe a dozen guests.  There’s a patio not far from the dressing room trailers.  Stars twinkle, Colorado cannabis breezes past our nostrils.  My crew has found an empty table.  We’re still buzzing like recently unplugged amps, exchanging accolades of what we’d just seen, heard, and felt. Shortly before midnight, the band members appear en masse and fan out across the patio. I can’t explain why – celestial destiny would be a good guess – but the first one to approach us is Jeff, caressing a crystal goblet of champagne, his beverage of choice.  

“Can I show you a photo, Jeff?” blurts the ancient reporter on assignment from nowhere for no one.  I pull up a pic on my iPhone of yours truly sandwiched between Slash and David Bowie.  The GN’R wielder bearing sheepish grin has his head resting on my shoulder. I’m wearing an INXS Kick tour tee and a deer-in-headlights “how did I get here?” gaze.  He examines the pic.  “Ahhh, Bowie, man I miss him.  Where was this taken?”  I swallow and respond, “You and Stevie Ray, L.A. Sports Arena, December 1989. I brought Lita Ford.” Gentle, disarming, this is not a rock star poisoned by narcissistic trappings or privileged posing.  He’s one of us. Human, unaffected, almost silly.  Yet at the same time, he’s Jeff Beck, alien, incomparable, archetype of his instrument. He floats between both realities on invisible angel wings.  “Ohhhh yeahhhh, I remember that night!” he beams.  “We all wound up at Slim Jim Phantom’s house. Saw the sun rise. That was a rave, man.” 

“Does everyone have a glass of champagne?” asks our host.  Glasses fill and I make the intros.  “This is Nicole and her boyfriend, John. He’s ‘Jimmy Page’ in a Led Zeppelin tribute band.” Now John’s the deer, slack-jawed, motionless.  He mirrors Jimmy, but truth be told, Jeff is his unrivaled guitar hero. Without missing a beat, Jeff looks John dead in his bloodshot peepers and says, “Pagey huh?  Is that hard?”  A salvo drier than the expensive bubbly we’re sipping.  “Well, uh, now yes, it is,” comes the reply. Our host moves on to engage his fellow gifted instrumentalists.  The reporter exhales. “I’m going to tell this story … forever.”

See also: Top 11 Jeff Beck Songs

Another aural alignment, three years prior, the iconic pairing of Sir Jeff and the beatified Beach Boy, Brian Wilson.  October 20, 2013, the storied open-air Greek Theatre where I’ve danced and rocked and wept through a hundred sacred sessions from Peter Gabriel’s white-light Security in the eighties to Tori Amos’s full-moon tour finales in the nineties; Dio’s Heaven & Hell, I stood alongside King Edward VH at the sound board, beholding the black majesty of Tony Iommi and the elfin howler, Ronnie James. Six-string synchronicity under the starriest of skies. In the summer of 2007, Michael Franti completed his Spearhead set opening for Matisyahu and with acoustic still in hand, lept off the front of the stage to hug a friend in the eighth row.  No one freaked out.  Because this was our house, our tribe, our room.  Rockin’ with the kindred spirits. No finer sensation anywhere. Over under sideways down, welcome to the Greek, sonic temple of good vibrations; most righteous room in town.

Randy Lewis wrote in the L.A. Times, in addition to “Danny Boy,” their combined three-song set late in the game allowed Beck to make the doo-wop throwaway “Barbara Ann” live and breathe anew. His work during “Surfing U.S.A.” became a master class demonstration in how Beck and his British peers took the guitar-centric template created by Chuck Berry and launched it into the musical stratosphere a few years later.

I’ve got my poetic, prodigy child, Megan Rose, in tow for the transcendence.  Beck’s set concludes with his magically melancholy version of the Beatles’ “A Day in the Life.”  What Lennon & McCartney provided in verse, Beck mirrored and elevated in steel.  We’re marching the concrete walk towards the exit with a throng of satiated fans when Melissa D appears like a firefly in the night.  “Lonn! Follow me.” Into the backstage breach, once again.  “Dad, are we gonna meet Jeff?” vibrates my twentysomething student of serendipity and song.  My silent smile portends the inevitable.

“Jeff, this is Lonn Friend and his daughter, Megan,” chimes the beloved media maiden, as I’m extending my right hand to embrace the most dexterious divine digits popular music as even known, the only child proudly proclaims, “I listen to Blow by Blow in the bathtub with bubbles and candles burning.  ‘Cause We’ve Ended as Lovers’ is like whale song.” The room literally freezes for a moment.  “Well, that is absolutely beautiful,” beams the Englishman.  “Someone please get this young lady a glass of champagne!” 

Jeff Beck, Megan, and Lonn (Photo: Lonn Friend)

Here comes that insufferable synchronicity again.  August 16, 2014, it’s the 37th anniversary of Elvis Presley’s death — the original King — and I’m at the Joint inside the Hard Rock Hotel beholding the electrostatic tour o’ the summer, ZZ Top and Jeff Beck.  Assessing rock n’ roll royalty is the province of scribes and historians. Through the peaks and valleys of my fly on the wall career, I am (at the beginning and end of the day) simply a fan.  I’ve confessed in both memoirs that despite being the son of a remarkable piano player, Don Friend’s firstborn inherited zero musical talent.  I tap these keys and forever marvel at the mad musical scientists that conjure miracles with their ineffable expertise.

It’s a co-headline event but tonight, Jeff initiates the onslaught.  My dead center floor seat permitted unfiltered fixation of the master at work. And play.  E’s spirit was undoubtedly in the room.  Goosebumps traditionally appear during “A Day in the Life” but tonight, I was full-on weeping. “Chicken Soup for the Rubber Soul” – the Beatles chapter of my debut memoir, Life on Planet Rock. It’s in the cells, like, since long before puberty. Sgt. Pepper changed the world. My world.  THE world. The essence of this truth percolates into every note that Jeff bends and swaddles.  McCartney played his wedding. Oh boy.

Emotionally exhausted after the opener, I wasn’t certain I could hang for the bearded Texans, much as I enjoy and appreciate their groovy catalog.  So, I took a walk. And ran into a local friend, who invited me into his skybox where I was reunited with two familiar icons, Cameron Crowe and photographer Neal Preston, The Almost Famous team.  While Gibbons’ shred, we caught up. A conversational Bolero.  How can this possibly happen?  Blame it on Beck. His energy.  His magic dust. Clock struck midnight. “I have to go home.”  And the ghost replied with a Memphis twang, “You are home.” 

Research and regale in the sixty-year canon of his technicolor chords. It’s all there at your digital fingertips.  A legacy of multi-genre musical magic that will survive whatever cataclysmic calamity our idiotic human race has in store for us.  Tap up Apple Music, Jeff Beck Essentials, and disappear for a few hours into shuffle heaven.  Meantime, I’m going to excavate one last anecdote, from another roofless room when I traveled east to my parents’ birthplace, Chicago, Illinois, for the aptly titled “Stars Align” tour featuring Sir Jeff, Sir Paul Rodgers and Princess Ann Wilson. It’s July 29, 2018, and I’m celebrating my 62nd birthday with homegrown pal, Joanna and the light of my life, Megan Rose, who flew in from New York to rock with her old man in the company of legends.

Thanks to Mrs. Rodgers, we take our seats, seventh row. The previous year, I was honored to pen the bio inside the 2017 Free Spirit UK tour book. Woke up, fell out of bed, dragged the comb across my head and with a little research/editing help from Jo, my words were read by fans at the tour finale inside the Royal Albert Hall in London. All right now, let’s get this party started!  Ann’s set opened with “The Real Me” and closed with “We Don’t Get Fooled Again.” There were, of course, Heart classics in the middle, but WHO am I to judge an artist’s intentions?  She rocked, and we were ready for the hallowed pipes of the ineffable Mr. Rodgers. “Fire and water, must have made you their daughter!”  Paul’s titanic tonsils cracked open the Windy City canopy and we were ready for a trek to the multilingual Stratocaster stratosphere with Captain Beck.

How could this be anything but amazing? Carl Jung spoke of a ‘confluence of events,’ that impossible cosmic collision when all things on earth and in ether lined up in harmonious perfection to deliver a moment and a message.  In simple terms, that it’s all good.  We’re okay.  The Universe has given us the thumbs up.  Don’t argue, don’t question.  Just ride the wave … and the riff.

As Jeff melts into the immutable “Morning Dew,” my thoughts slingshot me back to childhood growing up in the San Fernando Valley, where my oldest friend, Mark (an original American Beauty-bred Dead Head), and I would air guitar Jerry Garcia after long, dumb days at Milliken Jr High.  I went on to attend Grant High with the gifted teens that would evolve into the band Toto.  Steve Lukather and I have been friends for forty years. Luke, a universally acclaimed shredder in his own right, said, “There is Jeff Beck and then everyone else”; Luke told that to The Lefsetz Letter on January 12th, two days after the seventh anniversary of the exit of lifelong fellow Starman, David Bowie.  “He’s God’s guitar player, and now sadly for us that is fact.” Bowie & Beck both died on January 10th.

Damn, Carl. 

The Chicago set concludes with the timeless, bone-crushing 1972 standard, “Goin’ Down,” a song that registers seismic activity whenever and however it’s offered. Find the heart-stopping duet with Beth Hart, but crank it up at your own risk!  We patiently remain seated until the crowd dissipates. As the long, hot summer day reaches its ephemeral end, we drift toward the trailers. 

No sign of Sir Jeff but in plain sight, smiling and chatting with a couple guests, is Paul Rodgers.  We approach with respectful space. The front man is in good spirits.  I introduce Megan, while Joanna discreetly snaps a couple pix.  “Can I ask you something, Paul?” I never know what my daughter is thinking. Her brain is way bigger and more complexly constructed than mine ever was.  “Of course, dear,” responds the Englishman.  “Do you think that Jeff is possibly an extra-terrestrial? I mean, doesn’t his guitar sound like it may have been crafted on another planet?”  Whatever happened to “it’s nice to meet you?” Not my kid.  “Well, darling, you may have something there,” replied Paul. “He certainly possesses talents and skills not of this world.”  

The Fire Meets the Fury tour of ’89 was the first time I saw Jeff Beck perform live. Aside from the Thin White Duke, every accomplished axe man in Los Angeles was in the room that night, including Luke, Dweezil and King Edward.  Terry Bozzio was on the kit behind Jeff, keeping the beat.  I interviewed him and Ronnie James Dio the day they had their hands placed in cement in front of the Guitar Center Hollywood Mother Ship.  Jung man’s blues. “Will time make man more wise?” What is that shape of things to come for humanity, for rock n’ roll?  We don’t have many originals left. Ancient, creative warriors of melody and magnificence.  

In my January 2021 Goldmine Magazine eulogy titled, “Remembering the Awesomeness of Eddie Van Halen,” I wrote:

Age, entropy, the gravity of existence, disease, and dystopia. Some departures ache more than others, like Lemmy, Glenn Frey, Bowie … and this one. The eruption you’re feeling is the throb and rattle of an avatar crossing over. King Edward is dead. Long live the King.

Ladies and gentlemen, Jeff Beck has left the room, called home by the Mothership. His departure leaves a black hole in the celestial fabric. To quote his fellow countryman (woman), Beth Orton, “There’s a whole wide galaxy of emptiness tonight.” Thankfully, we have his music — which will survive long after the brightest star twinkles its last.

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