BEN LEE ROCKS RICHARD'S ON RICHARDS IN VANCOUVER - REVIEW:

















Photo copyright KulPop

Wow. Ben Lee never disappoints a crowd when he performs live (at least none of the many gigs I've seen over the years). Tonight he shone again as he performed 23 songs, some acoustic solo and most with his guitarist/keyboard/percussionist/background vocalist Nick Jones. Vocally he's never sounded better and his fans love him a lot, and he genuinely seems to appreciate his fans. The set list is listed below, some tracks from his latest cd 'Ripe', a couple of covers and a variety of other tracks from his fairly long career for such a young guy.

One of the highlights was when he decided to perform something new, a cover of Silverchair's song 'Straight Lines'. Cary Brothers and one of his band mates joined Ben on stage after Ben went backstage to grab his Blackberry which he used to read the lyrics from. I video taped the performance on my camera which ended in Ben stage diving into the crowd.

Later he mentioned that he had lost a button off his jacket during the stage dive and that if anyone found it he would appreciate getting it back. During the last song of the set, an unplugged (until near the end) version of We're All In This Together a young woman handed him his lost button and he commented on how that was an example of what the song was all about. He wasn't planning to do an encore but after quite a while of the crowd cheering he did come back out and performed two more songs. He said he plans to be back in the city on tour again in the New Year, something to watch out for. I spoke with Ben for a second after the gig and recounted my Birthday story to him and he signed my copy of 'Ripe', the perfect ending to my birthday.

A quick note about one of his opening act - Cary Brothers (it is a guy, not a group of brothers like the other opening band, the duo called the Kahn Brothers). Cary was great, performing tracks from his new cd 'Who You Are'. One of the songs he performed is a cover of the Thompson Twins 80's hit 'If You Were Here' that gained fame from being featured in the John Hughes film 'Sixteen Candles' (and you can hear the cover on his MySpace page). I spoke with Cary briefly after the show and asked him about the cover (I was a huge TT fan back in the day), and he said he has always loved the track and decided to record it. He said it is starting to get some radio play in the U.S., and that he recently received an email from Alannah Currie giving her blessing to the cover.

Ben Lee - Richard's On Richards - Vancouver November 6th, 2007

Back In Your Life
Naked
American Television
How Can That Be?
Numb
Into The Dark
Love Me Like The World Is Ending
cover of Against Me's song 'Borne On The FM Waves Of The Heart'
The Debt Collectors
Aftertaste
Close I've Come
Is This How Love's Supposed To Feel?
snippet of Cary Brother's song 'Jealousy'
Ripe
Begin
Ache For You
Cigarettes Will Kill You
cover of Silverchair's song 'Straight Lines'
Sex Without Love
Catch My Disease
We're All In This Together

Encores:
Gamble Everything For Love
Whatever It Was