The Turning Gate

"Sometimes the weird ones are the good ones ...

“… and this is a weird one,” Ben Lee said in middle of his set last night at The Canal Club, in Richmond, Virginia.

And it was weird, but in a very good way. The audience was small — the smallest I’ve ever seen at any show, anywhere. Rather than being disappointed at the small turnout, however, Ben moved the band from the stages to the floor where they set up in a semi-circle in chairs. Those of us in the audience then filled in that circle, sitting betwixt the instruments and their corresponding musicians, making for the most intimate and coziest concert I have ever attended.

But stories are best told from the beginning, so allow me to back this up just a bit.

I arrived very early for the concert. It was a three hour drive from home and I allowed myself plenty of time to get lost and find dinner along the way. Well, I wasn’t very hungry and I didn’t have any problems getting there. So I stood outside for a little while. Ben was pacing in the parking lot on his cell phone for a while and then took it inside. The sky threatened rain, and though the doors still hadn’t opened yet, the proprietess of the club invited me in to hang out. Inside, I got some food at the bar, had a few beers and introduced myself to Ben, who was eating a salad in one of the booths.

I told him that I was Angie Hart‘s web master and we both agreed that Angie was great — Ben and Angie are friends in Los Angeles. We chatted for a moment and I left him to his salad, as I didn’t really have much to say, but just wanted to say ‘hello’.

Eventually, the doors opened and the general public began to filter in. I’d already been there at least an hour by then. I noticed a girl with a Canon EOS “Digital Rebel” hanging ‘round her neck, so struck up conversation with her. Turns out she and her friends work for the Times Dispatch, which makes us colleages in Virginia media (we all work for newspapers under the umbrella of the VPA). Since I’d come to the show alone, I spent the evening hanging out with my new friends.

We went upstairs to the performance area around 8 p.m., and the opening acts came on. They were interesting, and I’ll touch upon them at the end of this article.

As Ben prepared to go on, the band began moving instruments onto the floor, in the middle of the crowd. He said he really didn’t know what he was doing, but would figure it out as he went along. The entire show seemed to follow this philosophy. He hadn’t written a setlist for the show, but just made it up as he went, letting the band know what to play before each song. He did remember the water, though. “That’s the most important thing for any rock and roll show,” he said.

Myself and the group of journalists that I’d adopted myself into set up camp at Ben’s feet and settled in for an excellent performance. The audience was all sitting up front, and with people standing around the edges. It was more like playing around a campfire fire than a concert in a club.

Ben began the show with “Gamble Everything For Love” from his new album, Awake Is The New Sleep, then played “Begin”. The third song seemed to be a spontaneous oddity. He told the band that it was mostly A and E chords, then proceeded to cover Sinead O’Connor’s “The Emporer’s New Clothes”. And he did it very well.

We were also treated to the public debut performance of a new song, the title of which I’m uncertain. Ben introduced it as being a children’s song.

Throughout the performance he was very conversational with the audience. He played songs from Breathing Tornados and some others I’ve never heard. At one point he asked whether anyone in the audience had any questions. I asked him if he would play “Underground”, a song co-written with Angie Hart. He made some comments about how nicely I’d asked the question, how we’d met earlier and I was a decent fellow, and that I was wearing a nice shirt, and agreed to give it a go.

At first he couldn’t remember the first line to “Underground”, but it came to him. He got into it just past the first verse and admitted that he couldn’t remember the rest. It was a solid effort, though, and I was happy to hear even a bit of it; it was nice of him to try.

Towards the end of the set, he played “We’re All In This Together” during which he unplugged his guitar, stepped away from the microphone and walked through the audience, who was all singing along, singing with people. He closed the set with “Catch My Disease”. The band was next traveling to Nashville, so he tried to get away with the encore having been included in the set, but didn’t take much convincing to give us a proper encore. He sat back down and played “Apple Candy” and “The Debt Collectors”.

After the performance, Ben and the band hung around the room chatting with fans. I got him to sign a CD for me and we took a photo with Heather’s camera. Chatted just a bit more and then I took off for the three hour drive home. All-in-all, it was a great show. I liked his albums before, but having now seen him perform, I’m finding new life in his recordings. He told me he’d be touring in support of Aimee Mann later this summer, and that sounds like a show I’ll have to catch.

As for the opening acts, Maria Taylor went on first and was very good. Pretty girl with a pretty voice, and a good songwriter. Her debut solo album is coming out in May and I intend to watch for it. I think she’s from a band called Azure Ray, but I’m not familiar with them either.

She was followed by Har Mar Superstar, a greasy, overweight, balding man who thinks far too highly of himself. He played with a bass player, Maria Taylor’s drummer and a Powerbook. He gyrated around the stage, swing his microphone, and putting on the “sex moves” — spanking himself, humping the monitor, slinking his hand across his “sexy” bits, and taking off his clothes. And he asked the audience, “Anybody wanna make out?”

Did I mention that he was greasy, overweight and balding? Did I mention that we could see his butt-crack or that he was sweating profusely? He was disgusting, and it was one of the most raunchy, hilarious things I’ve seen in ages. I was laughing hysterically and could barely contain myself. Purely for the humor of it all, I actually enjoyed the performance. I don’t think it was supposed to be funny, but I was dying. Har Mar seems to think himself very hot shit, though, which makes it all the funnier.

(photos by Heather Ryan.)

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