The last time I saw Ben Lee play it was at a little side stage, among Indian food tee-pees and lots of cushions.
It was 2013 and the festival was Splendour In The Grass, and he had just released a new conceptual album. He was sitting down, the crowd attentively watching as he chanted, threw his arms up in the air and poured out his soul.
If anyone was expecting the Ben Lee who plays pop music then that evening they were not going to get it. I watched for a while before racing off to Lana Del Ray via some rather large mud holes. He was a different Ben Lee than I was expecting. Fast forward almost two years and Ben Lee is back with a brilliant new album released just days ago. He has returned to the Ben Lee that the world knows and loves.
Tonight (5 June, Black Bear Lodge), he is still wearing a tan suit and scruffy beard though – that hasn't changed and I doubt it ever will.
Click here for photos from the show.
He takes a seat on stage and starts to play. Having just listened to the beautiful mellow Gordi the crowd are uncomfortably seated on the hardwood floor and Ben walks out on stage to start his set. The venue is rather small and not set out for music and it's cramped. The woman next to me keeps kicking me deliberately; we're all a little annoyed at each other at the poor set-up by the time he makes it out.
Someone forgets to turn down the house music and Ben is forced to tell them off but he's alright with it, just eager to start. Maybe the house DJ should be paying attention. This is where the brilliance of Ben lays, his boyish charm is able to gather a crowd of strangers together and unite them.
He opens with new single 'Big Love', and people aren't quite paying attention yet – they're all still sitting down and chatting a little. Ben is about to change that. He's going to make us pay attention. Not pausing he goes straight in to 'Begin' and the crowd still hasn't quite warmed to him just yet; it's not a popular song and the lesser known songs are just not enough to make people stand up.
Mid song he says: "I think I wanna stand up" and awkwardly kicks his chair away. By the chorus a few fans are singing along shyly not really knowing the words of this reflective, beautiful song. The crowd claps and Ben humbly thanks everyone. “It is so good to be back here,” he gushes. “It's so good that people should stand,” replies a rather drunk girl somewhere in the front row where she has been dancing and waving her arms around.
“Well I'm standing,” Ben continues, “but I did notice there is a very strategically placed cocktail table right in front of the stage that might be preventing, shall we move that along, do you guys desperately need that?” It's working as a place to put empty drinks and Ben with the help of others moves the empty bottles before he realises it is in fact a speaker, rather oddly placed on the floor. “I've only been in the music industry 23 years and some things still elude me about the technology," he jokes.
Unfazed he launches into 'In The Dark' and we're all up and dancing now, the drunk girl leading the charge. There are two young men in the front row enraptured and they sing along to every song faces lit up. Even when there are songs played they don't know, they happily clap along and sway.
It's like this for most of the crowd. Voices ring out united when everyone knows the songs from 'Awake Is The New Sleep'. The newer music is very fresh and when Ben plays that people tend to clap along waiting for the stuff they know.
Image © Chris WardTowards the end of the evening he plays 'Catch My Disease' and everyone is united in one happy, memorable moment joyously singing along with abandon. The back row are dancing and voices ring out, Ben clearly loving it as well.
It is a moment that will be long remembered by every single person that was here to share it.
