Ben Howard @ The Thekla, Bristol, 14th October 2011
As Ben Howard strides on stage tonight at the sold out Thekla, big white mug of brew in hand, rapturous applause all around and a debut album that reached number 7 in the charts. You can almost detect a hint of bewilderment in his eyes at the reaction to his music. For those who were fortunate to hear of him a few years ago his appeal comes as no surprise. For his fans this is the golden moment, small town boy done good, and every one tonight is swept along in the excitement.
Opener ‘Old Pine’ immediately settles the restless crowd. This is the magic of his music. This sound settles the soul. This is what sets a musician like Ben out from the crowd of other talented musicians. You feel the love in the crowd, you feel the pain, you feel his heartache; his songs get right into the old rib cage and tug on your heartstrings.
The set mixes EP tracks like ‘Further Away’ and Radio hit ‘Keep Your Head Up.’ This is not the night for replaying the album on shuffle mode. ‘The Fear’ has been developed with India playing percussion, which brings not only India to her feet but also gets the crowd moving. The band has really grown as a three piece, the sound bigger, more processed and rising and falling in intensity effortlessly. India on Cello, Bass and Percussion adds beautiful wistful harmonies and delicate layers. Chris Bond on drums, drums and bass (at the same time) and guitar, double bass and backing vocals (Pretty much every instrument) holds the pulse of the songs and is undoubtedly the key to the sound of this young band.
Other highlights of what was a pretty much a perfect set was ‘Black Files.’ Ben states that this is the song he is most proud of on the album. For a young man who seemingly has everything a young musician could ever want, there is a loneliness in this track, that makes you in the audience want the songwriter to feel some of the comfort that his songs provide to others. When the song ends, Ben struggles to hide the feelings that undoubtedly prompted the song.
Ending the set on ‘The Wolves’ the hull of the Thekla becomes the scene of a good old sing along. It is with songs like ‘The Wolves’ that you realize the mainstream appeal of this mans music. The crowd is eager to join in with the somewhat angelic wolf howls and the ending is stretched out with a stadium rock style call and response to the lyric, “love, love, love.” Never does it feel cliché, never is it contrived; it is just beautiful.
With the crowd nearly mutinying for an encore, the band returned to the stage and played ‘Move Like You Want’ and it was over all too soon. Bouncers ushered starry-eyed teenage girls from the barriers and everyone left with the feeling that they had just been a part of the journey of a special talent; who needs protecting.
