Palais Theatre, Lower Esplanade, St Kilda
On a balmy Melbourne winters night, people flocked to the beautiful Palais Theatre in St Kilda, in anticipation of the wondrous Ben Howard. Proceedings began when Nick Mulvey trudged onto the stage with a guitar in hand. Nick then spent the next 45 minutes treating the crowd to some fantastic acoustic guitar and even more fantastic singing. Nick closed with his most known song “Cucurucu”.
Nick Mulvey
The crowd quickly began growing as the anticipation for Ben Howard was growing at an alarming rate. Almost 15 minutes before Ben was due on stage, the sold out Palais Theatre was packed to the rafters and the crowd were causing quite a commotion.
The wilderness that is the Palais Theatre stage
The sudden dimming of the lights was met with a wild cheer, and out strolled four band members each taking their place behind their respective instruments. Shortly after an even louder cheer was heard when Mr. Ben Howard himself made his way to centre stage, to take his place behind a microphone and be presented with his guitar. As the crowd began to simmer down Ben and his band started their first song “End of the Affair”. Ben was constantly involved in banter throughout the gig and this all began as he told the crowd pre song what kind of mood he would be setting. After the second song in the set, Ben exclaimed that the mood would now be taking a more positive swing, but warned everyone that the next one was to bring it back down. He proceeded to play hit after hit that the crowd just ate up. As the night went on the crowd became more rowdy and each song was met with an earth shattering roar. Halfway through the set Ben had an extended chat with his awestruck audience, he explained that he and his band preferred to play his new material but would still play the old stuff that he knew the capacity crowd at the Palais wanted to hear. Two new songs then followed “Small Things” and “Conrad” along with the upbeat crowd favourite "Keep Your Head Up"
A seated and far more mellow Ben Howard
After a small batch of new songs an eager crowd member shouted to Ben, asking when the aforementioned new album will be appearing on shelves. To which Ben responded “October”, and followed this with a reason as to why he didn’t announce it earlier, “We were going to announce it at Splendour, but we had a shocker”.
Capacity crowd dancing to the beautiful track by Ben Howard "The Fear"
More beautiful Ben Howard favourites were played for the wonderfully receptive audience, until a small Red Hot Chili Peppers-esque jam went down, leading into the intro to “The Fear”. A collective scream occurred which announced the excitement of the crowd. So excited were the crowd that the entire sold out Palais Theatre were now on their feet dancing. During this beautiful rendition of his hit song, Ben and co. looked out into the crowd to see the entire place standing and cheering, a staggering sight to see for all involved in the event. This was the final song in the set as Ben thanked the crowd for everything, bowed to the crowd and then waved as he strolled off stage.
The "depressing" side of Ben Howard
The lights went bright again and the crowd shouted for more. Ben and the band then came back out to their original positions on the stage to end the night with a long and loud, almost rock ’n’ roll inspired musical outro to the wonderful show put on. The crowd once again thanked Ben and his band for the truly astounding talent they just witnessed, and Ben and friends thanked the crowd back. After everyone had cleared the stage, the lights shone bright and everyone started filtering out of Palais Theatre onto the streets of St Kilda once again.
Ben Howard and his band offered the crowd a truly grand performance that included older hits which generated a rousing reception from the crowd, and unreleased stuff that was a sign of some beautiful new Ben Howard tracks to come. It also involved a bit of crowd interaction and some comedic promise coming from the man everyone was there to see. When you can get a sold out crowd on their feet dancing and applauding at a totally seated event, than you've just put on an absolute cracker.
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