Tagging a film as a thrill ride occasionally denigrates the movie, suggesting it lacks the substance to provide more than 100 minutes of edge-of-the-seat chills. It's no insult to suggest Jeff Beck [ tickets ] continues to be a thrill-ride of guitarist as, over the years, few have designed so many musical roller-coasters and so deftly taken fans for a heart-stopping ride.

For the first of his two sold-out shows (4/21) at the relatively intimate El Rey Theater in Los Angeles, Beck hewed closely to the set heard on his recent album "Performing this Week ... Live at Ronnie Scott's." The material comes from nearly every stage in Beck's post-Yardbirds career of the last 41 years. The emphasis is on loud and fast, squarely on his '70s instrumental recordings--and 1989's "Jeff Beck's Guitar Shop"--that attacked jazz from a hard-edge corner of rock.

At 65, Beck's talent is hardly diminished. The guitar runs are fleet and varied; nary a growl has been softened; and every rambunctious element, especially Vinnie Colaiuta's extraordinary and still focused drumming, is allowed to roam free. "Led Boots" and "Space Boogie" were the evening's prime vehicles for wanton exhibitionism; Beck used both tunes to deftly race between darkness and light while keeping the listener's heart rate accelerated. For those who relish the technical aspects of Beck's playing, they had to be among the evening's high points.

Rod Stewart, who sang in the Jeff Beck Group 40-odd years ago on the classics "Truth" and "Beck-Ola," made a surprise appearance toward the end of the main set. (Joss Stone would appear during the final encore of Sly and the Family Stone's "I Want to Take You Higher").

The presence of Stewart, though, worked as a reminder of elements that could use some pumping up in this particular edition of the Beck band: melodic exploration and raw blues. They performed Curtis Mayfield's "People Get Ready," with Beck as the locomotive and Stewart as the conductor, and Willie Dixon's "I Ain't Superstitious," which gave hope to the idea that these two can still make mid-century blues work in the 21st century.

There were other moments in which Beck tangoed with known melodies, Stevie Wonder's "Cause We've Ended as Lovers" and Lennon-McCartney's "A Day in the Life," but not enough to demonstrate how facile an interpreter he can be. "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat," the solemn ballad Charles Mingus wrote for Lester Young, gets shortchanged in its medley with Beck's "Brush With the Blues," which takes the tune from the meditative to the fiery a bit too quickly. This band celebrates the screams without leaving room for the whispers.

A bright spot was Beck's beautifully played "Angel (Footsteps)," which emphasized the human cry of the slide guitar and served as a much needed breather.

A separate revelation came in the bass playing of Tal Wilkenfeld, a 23-year-old woman who consistently plays with a warm, round tone reminiscent of Jaco Pastorius. She was given two solos, the first one a buoyant roll through various scales that held onto a sweet romantic air. The second was a bit of fun showboating with Beck playing the bottom end on her bass and Wilkenfeld smartly striking the melody. Near the solo's conclusion, she launched into a few bars of "Freeway Jam," reminding the packed house that within all of this serious music it's possible to have fun.