Beck has long made the arenas and amphitheaters of the world his playground. In past big-ticket jaunts, he’s included a marionette show that mimicked every move he and his band made onstage and had a full dinner service set-up mid-show (with the glasses, plates, and table being used as instruments for a song or two). He’s peppered his sets with oddball cover songs and synchronized dance routines and other bits of artistic derring-do that showcased his versatility, chops, and smart choice of touring musicians.

Last night’s performance at the Sunlight Supply Amphitheater—the first date of his co-headlining tour with excitable alt-rockers Cage the Elephant—was, by contrast, Beck on autopilot. Granted, the 49-year-old musician going on autopilot still results in one hell of a funky good time. But with a limited window of time to perform and the responsibilities of a summer tour on his shoulders, that left no room to stretch out and take chances.

This hit-it-and-quit mentality was established early on in the evening. Opening act Spoon barreled through some of the finest moments in their discography to both introduce themselves to an audience that skewed millennial and serve their promotional duties for their forthcoming greatest hits collection Everything Hits At Once. It took a little bit for the band to get their momentum rolling after a dead amplifier derailed the first song and forced them into a more spartan rendition of “The Way We Get By,” but once they hit cruising altitude, their set was lean, crisp, and vicious.

Co-headliners Cage the Elephant attempted to provide the spectacle for the night, with some truly awkward pyrotechnics and frontman Matt Shultz’s borderline dangerous antics, which found him spending a good chunk of their set wandering through the audience, almost braining a few folks with a mic stand as he went. Shultz’s older brother Brad attempted to join the fun at one point and wound up snapping the neck of his guitar, handing it off to a lucky audience member standing nearby.

Their other job was simply to wind the audience up for the headliner. The quintet accomplished that mission handily, as much of the crowd (especially the younger folks in the audience) were primarily there to see Cage the Elephant. So, the band delivered with an hour-plus set of high-octane alt-rock sans ballads and long stretches of dead time between songs. The Kentucky-bred group also proved to be the perfect example for a modern artist in the age of Spotify. Their set felt like an eclectic playlist, jumping from mid-'60s British Invasion pastiche to '80s power rock to late '90s New York dance rock. Their stage setup also cherry-picked from rock history liberally, with a light array that at times hinted at the cover of Genesis’ Seconds Out and Matt Shultz’s knee pads and football shorts outfit that felt like a nod to Mick Jagger’s stage wear ca. 1981. Not all of it worked but there was an infectiousness to their enthusiasm that was difficult to ignore.

Beck played everything much cooler. He didn’t need to try to match Cage’s energy or bombast. He had the hits in his hip pocket and his status as elder statesman of the Alternative Nation era to buoy him. But he also didn’t fuck around; he and his band (a well-rehearsed sextet that included longtime cohorts Jason Falkner and Roger Manning) came out swinging with the one-two punch of “Loser” and “The New Pollution,” and, for the first half-hour, knocked out as many of the adult contemporary radio favorites as he could manage. Things dipped considerably from there as he tried to turn “Lost Cause” into a Crosby Stills & Nash homage but was hampered by the sound mix and microphone choice, following it up with some of his most recent—and weakest—tunes.

But just as he was getting the groove back with a nicely nasty version of “Devil’s Haircut,” and an always welcome run through half of “Where It’s At,” he ground things to a halt by doing the Vegas-revue move that he’s been throwing into recent sets: One by one, he introduces the members of his band and each one leads a quick version of a song meant to represent their personalities, I guess? Fun as it must have been for the band to throw a little Blur or Chic into the set, it took up way too much time and, when they finally kicked back into “Where It’s At,” they realized time was up. Yes, the confetti and balloons came out but otherwise the set ended unceremoniously.

Beck’s night represents the fate of so many artists who came to commercial prominence during those wild post-grunge days of the '90s. Other than maybe Foo Fighters or Nine Inch Nails, the rest of the crowd have to face mid-day festival set times or attaching themselves to bills like this that are packed with names or venues with strict curfews like the Sunlight Supply Amphitheater. They can’t go long. They can’t offer up too many surprises, and those little pearls they do drop need to be easily digestible for the bridge-and-tunnel crowd. Beck seems more willing than most to play the game, but had to strip away his experimental side as a result. It's time to come to terms with the fact that he's completely part of the system now. Accept it or step aside, baby.