Beck And The Flaming Lips To Play Toronto

We knew it was coming, but now it's been officially announced. Beck will include one Canadian stop on his upcoming tour: At Toronto's Massey Hall on October 20.

Beck gave a preview of his upcoming Sea Change album in August at T.O.'s Ryerson Theatre, but this Massey Hall performance will be something extra special. Beck will be touring with The Flaming Lips, who will open the show, take a short break, then return as Beck's backing band. Now, Beck's regular band is pretty kick-ass, but Beck with the Lips will be a mind-blowing meeting of the minds, for sure.

We predict magic, baby, pure magic.

Actually, we don't know what to predict — Beck's new album Sea Change is pretty good, but it's a definite departure from the sex funk of his last album, Midnite Vultures. With songs even folkier than the ones on the Mutations album (he approaches "Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald" territory — we swear), it'll be interesting to see how Beck and the Lips mix the new material with his older songs. Unless he pulls a Lauryn Hill and pretends he never recorded anything until 2002, of course.

Either way, tickets to the Toronto Beck show go on sale this Thursday (September 19) at 10 a.m. through Ticketmaster. Smart shoppers may want to log onto Beck's website to take in the special Internet pre-sale, which started today (September 16).

To whet your appetite, here's a tracklisting for Sea Change, which is due in stores on September 24:
"The Golden Age"
"Paper Tiger"
"Guess I'm Doin' Fine"
"Lonesome Tears"
"Lost Cause"
"End Of The Day"
"All In Your Mind"
"Round The Bend"
"Already Dead"
"Sunday Sun"
"Little One"
"Side Of The Road"