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Ben Watt Setlist
Alan Sparhawk Setlist
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British musician, singer, songwriter, and author Ben Watt (otherwise known as the guy in Everything But the Girl) just headlined the Dakota Jazz Club in Minneapolis on Wednesday, June 22nd, in support of his new album Fever Dream (Unmade Road).
The evening began with a rare solo set from Alan Sparhawk from Duluth band Low (as well as Retribution Gospel Choir, Black-Eyed Snakes, The Murder of Crows, and seemingly many more) who not only mesmerized the dinner club crowd during his brief thirty-minutes, but loaned a prize red guitar for the headlining act to play as well.
Sparhawk started somewhat randomly, in a dark suit and hunched over his guitar; half-tuning, half-playing before seguing into his beginning cover of Crosby Stills Nash and Young’s ‘Ohio’ poignantly changing “four dead in Ohio” to “forty-nine dead in Orlando” at one point.
Guns were obviously on the singer-songwriter’s mind in lieu of recent terrorist events, as he moved next into ‘Sandinista’ from Low’s 2007 album, Drums and Guns.
After an homage to Lake Superior and admittedly being a little spooked by all the upright guitars resembling people in his peripheral vision, a trio of Low songs even more stripped down was well-received, including newest songs, ‘What Part of Me’ and ‘Lies’.
Ben Watt, with guitarist Bernard Butler took the stage shortly after 7:30pm. Just a brief introduction to Bernard Butler, for those not familiar with the musician/music producer: he was Suede’s original guitarist. He wrote their second album Dog Man Star, but left the band before promotional and touring in 1994. Butler and Suede’s singer Brett Anderson would eventually mend, when they formed The Tears in 2004.
Butler has been hailed by some critics as the greatest guitarist of his generation, as well as one of Britain’s most original and influential guitarists... although watching him work on stage, being as humble as he is, Butler doesn’t let those titles goes to his head.
Watt & Butler met at a party “six years ago”, and wanted to collaborate because they “both wanted a change” (according to the Nottingham Post), however, the story he tells on stage was that it started as a joke.
We caught Watt & Butler on a tiny venue Bryant Lake Bowl in July 2014. The original booking sold out when words of these two legendary musicians were in town, so they quickly added another show to satiate demands.
Now the two is back, but this time at a much bigger venue and with a full backing band: bassist Cameron Ralston and drummer Pinson Chanselle, both from Spacebomb Records. Watt explained that the Spacebomb session musicians were highly recommended by Michael (M.C. Taylor) of Hiss Golden Messenger.
Since Ben Watt’s Fever Dream album just came out on Unmade Road, he played a lot of “new sh***”, but throwing in a few “old ones, because I know you guys like that.” You got the sense that he doesn’t think much of bands that are touring right now, but playing the hits from their old albums. As he would later explain, he is a very different person now than when he was 19 (writing ‘Some Things Don't Matter’ from his debut album North Marine Drive... before Everything But the Girl).
‘Hendra’, the title track from his previously 2014 album with Bernard Butler, was dedicated to his sister Jenny, who passed away unexpectedly. He explained that ‘Hendra’ was a street to Jenny’s rental vacation home. When he found out that the word meant ‘home’, he knew he had to write the song for his sister.
Watt said that he rarely sang on Everything But the Girl and so he simply didn’t play them live. One day, talking to EBTG’s singer Tracey Thorn, Thorn suggested that he sing on one of the songs Watt wrote for her. With that introduction, he proceeded to play ‘Rollercoaster’ solo on keyboard.
The other EBTG song, ‘25th December’ was the penultimate song. Of course, the title track to Fever Dream was saved last to close out the set.
With nearly a full house doing a standing ovation, the band came back out to play to ‘New Year of Grace’ and ‘Forget’ for the encore
Ben Watt’s Fever Dream is out now. Watt will be doing a free acoustic in-store appearance at Luna Music in Indianapolis tomorrow (June 29th).
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Alan Sparhawk |
Sparhawk started somewhat randomly, in a dark suit and hunched over his guitar; half-tuning, half-playing before seguing into his beginning cover of Crosby Stills Nash and Young’s ‘Ohio’ poignantly changing “four dead in Ohio” to “forty-nine dead in Orlando” at one point.
Guns were obviously on the singer-songwriter’s mind in lieu of recent terrorist events, as he moved next into ‘Sandinista’ from Low’s 2007 album, Drums and Guns.
After an homage to Lake Superior and admittedly being a little spooked by all the upright guitars resembling people in his peripheral vision, a trio of Low songs even more stripped down was well-received, including newest songs, ‘What Part of Me’ and ‘Lies’.
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Ben Watt
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Butler has been hailed by some critics as the greatest guitarist of his generation, as well as one of Britain’s most original and influential guitarists... although watching him work on stage, being as humble as he is, Butler doesn’t let those titles goes to his head.
Watt & Butler met at a party “six years ago”, and wanted to collaborate because they “both wanted a change” (according to the Nottingham Post), however, the story he tells on stage was that it started as a joke.
We caught Watt & Butler on a tiny venue Bryant Lake Bowl in July 2014. The original booking sold out when words of these two legendary musicians were in town, so they quickly added another show to satiate demands.
Now the two is back, but this time at a much bigger venue and with a full backing band: bassist Cameron Ralston and drummer Pinson Chanselle, both from Spacebomb Records. Watt explained that the Spacebomb session musicians were highly recommended by Michael (M.C. Taylor) of Hiss Golden Messenger.
Since Ben Watt’s Fever Dream album just came out on Unmade Road, he played a lot of “new sh***”, but throwing in a few “old ones, because I know you guys like that.” You got the sense that he doesn’t think much of bands that are touring right now, but playing the hits from their old albums. As he would later explain, he is a very different person now than when he was 19 (writing ‘Some Things Don't Matter’ from his debut album North Marine Drive... before Everything But the Girl).
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Setlist |
Watt said that he rarely sang on Everything But the Girl and so he simply didn’t play them live. One day, talking to EBTG’s singer Tracey Thorn, Thorn suggested that he sing on one of the songs Watt wrote for her. With that introduction, he proceeded to play ‘Rollercoaster’ solo on keyboard.
The other EBTG song, ‘25th December’ was the penultimate song. Of course, the title track to Fever Dream was saved last to close out the set.
With nearly a full house doing a standing ovation, the band came back out to play to ‘New Year of Grace’ and ‘Forget’ for the encore
Ben Watt’s Fever Dream is out now. Watt will be doing a free acoustic in-store appearance at Luna Music in Indianapolis tomorrow (June 29th).
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Ben Watt at the Dakota Jazz Club, Minneapolis (22 Jun 2016) |
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