Beck finds the right alchemy in L.A.

How are things going now that the life of the party has removed the lampshade from his head and kicked back in the corner?

A decade ago, L.A. musical alchemist Beck managed to catch the zeitgeist on his album “Odelay” and was christened rock’s man of the moment. He rose to the occasion with concerts that juxtaposed his signature mix of folk-blues, hip-hop and fuzz-guitar garage rock with an unlikely R&B; flash, part Prince and part James Brown.

In 2005, the deck has been reshuffled and new stars anointed, and Beck is back close to where he was before his star ascended, but with a far more substantial body of work and an audience that’s supportive and attentive.

His following may have been winnowed down to the faithful, but that’s still a good crowd. Beck played two dates over the weekend at the 6,000-seat Gibson Amphitheatre, delivering a lively but low-key show that replaced the exhilarating sense of discovery and breakthrough with a deeper and broader exploration of a rich songbook.

Beck played the upbeat crowd-pleasers, including the seminal “Loser,” the “Odelay” hit “Where It’s At” and several tunes from the new “Guero.” That album revisits the spirit and sound of “Odelay” after years of stylistic adventuring, and while it returns Beck to the role of the wide-eyed, whimsical bard looking to make sense of modern life’s clutter of sensory overload, it has a voice of its own. Especially potent Friday was “Que Onda Guero,” as vivid a musical expression of the flavors -- literal and cultural -- of the teeming, interracial streets of L.A. as you’ll find.

An acoustic segment toward the end of the set ran far longer than the token unplugging you usually get at rock concerts. In fact, this was really where Beck’s heart seemed to be, as he strung together selections from the stark, introspective “Sea Change” album and a transformation of the old concert albatross “Debra” from R&B; epic into back-porch blues.

The audience gave full attention to these songs, but Beck’s band members spent the time sitting at a table onstage, enjoying a meal. Afterward, they started tapping the tableware, building up an increasingly dense polyrhythmic clatter that led to a rousing finale of the new “E-Pro.”

Beck may not be the man of the moment anymore, but at times like this he seems very much where it’s at.