Brendan Benson

Having only attended The Sage in Gateshead two day's previous, I was able to take in a bit more than the fantastic surroundings that are on offer.

On my previous visits to the venue I've been simply awestruck at the venue, but this time I was able to recognise what a great venue The Sage is in terms of sound quality.

On Friday evening, Michigan's Brendan Benson, solo artist and guitarist in The Raconteurs, took to the smaller, more intimate surroundings of Hall 2, to delight an under capacity but expectant and loyal audience.

Benson's career has been a surprisingly lengthy one, with his debut solo album, One Mississippi, released in 1996. Since then he has released three other solo albums, and also collaborated with White Stripes front man Jack White with the hugely successful 'Raconteurs'.

However, Benson's solo show, for me and much of the audience, wasn't about hoping he'd sneak in a couple of Raconteurs for good measure.



As a solo artist, Benson is more than capable of holding his own, and has produced some fantastic work. With a set list that dipped into all four of his solo albums, including the more recent 'Lapalco', 'The Alternative to Love' and the album for which this tour is to promote, 'My Old, Familiar Friend'.

Particular highlights in the set included 'Good To Me', 'Spit It Out' and 'Cold Hands Warm Heart', but for me personally the new album is some of Benson’s best work, and it was his latest album which provided the best performances of the set.

'Happy Most Of The Time' sounded really fresh, but it was the first single taken from the album 'Feel Like Taking You Home' that really worked the audience.

Based around a keyboard riff, the song is a slow building piece, but by the end of the song everyone in the audience is dancing away and singing all the words back to Benson.



Throughout the set it became very clear that Benson was enjoying himself, even taking song requests from the audience, playing what they wanted when they wanted it. That's a real show.

Playing for 90 minutes, Benson and backing band crammed in as many songs as they possibly could, with Benson only really taking break between songs to re-tune guitars and to thank the audience, really showing that he's all about giving the audience exactly what they paid for.

Listening carefully to the performance you can really hear the difference to most normal shows, as The Sage prides itself on providing the very best in sound quality, and despite the room only being able to hold a capacity of around 300, they still make every effort to have a great sound quality, and this show was no different.

I was really impressed with Brendan Benson's overall show and performance at The Sage, and even though the show was billed by promoters as "Brendan Benson (The Raconteurs)", for me he's more than capable of being promoted under his own name, without the big band name drop. If you get the chance to come and see why people like Jack White want to work with him, take the opportunity.

FUTURE GIGS

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