all words: Logan Donaldson
all photos: Brandon Hirsch
Carl Palmer isn’t known for Atomic Rooster, his credit comes via Emerson, Lake, & Palmer; how many of Broken Social Scene’s rotating acts would be recognizable without the presence of the overall collective? John Paul Jones, purportedly a bassist, was plucked from relative obscurity to team up with Dave Grohl and Josh Homme for Them Crooked Vultures.
Brendan Benson is one Jack White away from remaining a cult favorite. Without “Steady As She Goes,” the hit single by the Benson and White led band The Raconteurs, Benson might still be a critical darling, but I suspect at his gigs he’d be unable to consistently fetch a full crowd.
Lucky for us, the curious, all-consuming listeners, the two Michigan-born songwriters did team up. And that’s primarily the reason Benson drew a nicely sized crowd Wednesday evening at the 930 Klub. Benson came on stage looking like Ian Hunter, circa Mott the Hoople, and jumped sloppily into a couple of his new tunes, “A Whole Lot Better” and “Don’t Wanna Talk.” The background vocals seemed timid and the guitars a little too muddy.
As the show went on, Benson’s quartet found a foothold (or was it the soundboard?) and cleanly ran the gamut of his songwriting strengths. The baroque pop element of his sound particularly seems to stick out live. At one moment I swore I heard lead guitar riffs from The Beatles’ “She Came In Through The Bathroom Window” and in the next I thought Jeff Lynne was on stage conducting vocal harmonies.
The excitement level of his show waxed and waned. Benson’s music is certainly danceable, but often times he didn’t invigorate the crowd with any of his own movement or enthusiasm. His lead guitarist seemed reluctant to really own his guitar solos, and instead stayed put behind his set of keyboards. Though at their best moments, the power pop rock was too loud and melodically infectious to ignore.
The lukewarm energy of the night was summarized during his encore. I tried getting a “U.S.A.! U.S.A!” chant going to entice the band back on, but the crowd wasn’t patriotic enough. When Benson did return, the two songs that bookended the encore (“What I’m Looking For,” “Feel Like Taking You Home”) seemed melodramatic and lackluster when compared to the cover of “American Girl” he stuck in the middle. The crowd ate up the Tom Petty classic, and I found it slightly embarrassing for Benson that this song provoked the most spirited reaction of the evening.
His set list included healthy doses from all four of his albums. So I have to believe long time fans were satisfied with the generous exposé of his discography, while first time listeners also got several helpings of his catchiest material.
And thank god that John Paul Jones, “purportedly a bassist,” was indeed picked from “relative obscurity.” Where would he be — nay, where would rock itself be — if Grohl and Homme had not deigned to pluck him from the shadows, reinvigorating what was, by all accounts, a sad and floundering career from beginning to end.
Stop me if I’m wrong, but there’s something strange about the fact that an assertion like that can make it into the opening paragraph of an article on a blog dealing frequently and haughtily with music — even if we take it as granted that the article was written by a total asshat. Take your big bottle of lotion and your spineless, debilitated fail-rock and go curl up inside a 24″ kick drum.
December 11, 2009 at 2:23 pmsecond that. zeppelin = mighty. author = squeaky queef
December 11, 2009 at 3:01 pmaye, it danked at my heart when he played Metarie…with the Cry-chor vocals matching the rising guitar chords to create a fully nostalgic feel.
I danked alright, I danked HARD.
December 11, 2009 at 4:21 pm…Jones and Thelonius…so…you do or don’t get humor?
December 11, 2009 at 4:33 pm
good review, wish id been there but it seems like bb does his best work in the studio
December 11, 2009 at 12:35 pm