It’s a surreal moment when you see one of your favorite bands live. They come on stage and you scream with everyone else, hardly able to grasp that the musicians whose music has shaped and influenced you so much are really standing in front of you. Seeing Ben Howard in Portland, Oregon left me with a swirl of crazy emotions, the biggest ones being disbelief and euphoria. Disbelief because I was about 10 feet from a man that I respected enormously and who, I’ll admit, idolized quite a lot. Euphoria because, after several years of listening to his records and watching Youtube videos, I was finally seeing him live.
Ben Howard and his fantastic band brought down the house that night. Howard seems like a shy person so he only talked a few times which made the audience want more of his adorable Devon accent. One of my favorite parts of the evening was when he said, “Coming from England they say that everyone in America is mental, and then when you get to America they say that everyone in Portland is mental, so we thought we should end our tour here.” His chats with the audience were brief but very sweet. I was extremely honored that he decided to end his tour in little old Portland, Oregon, and I’m sure I wasn’t the only audience member to feel that way.
Coming from Ashland I’m very accustomed to the scarf-clad hippies who make up most of the audience and who dance even if there isn’t any music playing. These people are entertaining and motivate the rest of the audience to let loose and enjoy themselves. I found myself missing these hairy patchouli-reeking dancers while I was at the Roseland Theatre in Portland. If I were braver I would have brought in the hippy dance moves but instead I swayed on the packed floor wishing that someone would start waving their arms in the air like a jellyfish.
To all the concert goers out there, please be respectful of your noise level if you’re hanging out at the venue’s bar. I was very pleased when Ben Howard stopped mid-song to tell a group of people by the bar to stop talking, but it pisses me off that he had to do that in the first place. This is a performance, you’re not in a club where the DJ doesn’t care if you’re listening or not. These are real people who are sharing their music with you and you should respect them enough to listen. If you want to drink with your friends and chat, then go to a bar; don’t come to a concert where other people are there to listen to the music and you’re there just to get drunk. It’s disrespectful to your fellow audience members and to the performer.
With that rant out of the way, I highly encourage you to check out Ben Howard and see him live if at all possible. In my 21 years of life on this earth I’ve gone to a good many concerts and this performance definitely is one of my top three favorite live shows. Although Howard is quiet, his music does all the talking. He is completely present while onstage and he appears to go very deep into himself while performing. During a few songs he got slightly choked up, you can sense that he still feels very deeply about whatever inspired him to write in the first place. Listening to his music I’ve gotten the impression that Howard is troubled person or has had traumatic relationships in his lifetime, but he’s able to channel whatever these emotions are into his music which, in my opinion, is free therapy and he does a hell of a good job.
©Autumn Micketti 2015
Autumn Micketti 