BEN LEE

WITH WASO

Perth Concert Hall

Friday, August 28, 2009

The West Australian Symphony Orchestra have done a brilliant job at bringing their art to masses. By teaming up with modern contemporary artists over the past few years they have filled venues on a regular basis. They have joined up with Ben Lee for the second year in a row and chosen the more intimate venue of the Perth Concert Hall for this current run of shows.

Lee admits to having been nervous about fronting a symphony orchestra and resisted the offer from WASO for quite some time, but since biting the bullet last year has been all over it like butter on warm toast.

Before the enigmatic songwriter walked to the stage, the man responsible for conducting the orchestral score for Baz Luhrmann’s Australia - Brett Kelly - organised himself and got ready to drive the orchestra for the evening. Lee soon followed with friend and instrumentalist Nic Johns who were both dressed in jeans and t-shirts which would be at odds with the scope of the occasion.

Pulling from his most popular album, Lee opened proceedings the string-heavy Whatever It Is before moving to the piano for Sing, a calypso take on Gamble Everything For Love and a jubilant Into The Dark. Lee has always been a pretty clever songwriter but with the backing of WASO his often simple shells are transformed into stylish and layered pieces.

He has never been short of a word and Lee’s between song banter was random and rapid. There were many entertaining tales from relaying the story of how he has put on some ‘sympathy weight’ while he and wife (Ione Skye) are expecting their first baby, referring to himself as ‘the luckiest Jew since Steve Gutenburg’, and when he spoke of how he loves to play the swelling and anthemic WASO version of Is This How Love’s Supposed To Feel.

In spite of the sympathy weight, the waif like Lee rarely missed the mark and the highlights were numerous. Numb - the big pop song from his Ripe album was transformed with the rhythm section being given a break. It was low on cheese and high on melody. One of the other high points was the power ballad Just Say Yes which was shown to be an underrated gem in the man’s catalogue.

After a brief intermission Begin was played before Lee introduced What’s So Bad About Feeling Good as a single that he put out at the start of the year that ‘bombed’. The Michael Pigneguy arrangement that was then performed had more strut and groove than the original and should have been the version that was released. It is an example of how at the hands of WASO a sow’s ear can be effortlessly turned into a silk purse.

For much of the night, Lee had been trying to approach the show with the comfort of a pub gig, and took it one step further when he retired the orchestra briefly to play some acoustic tunes. As one of the greatest songs that he has penned, the sparse Apple Candy was a welcome addition. He then unveiled songs from his forthcoming Noise Addict album including the witty Chris Martin’s Frown. The audience were then enticed into a call and response sing-along of Song For The Divine Mother Of The Universe before Brett Kelly and WASO were invited back to proceedings.

Sans rhythm section, Love Me Like The World Is Ending featured the best arrangement of the night, offering it some intimate appeal. A technical and grand intro was disparate to the playful I Love Pop Music before the biggest hits were unleashed. An orchestra of handclaps accompanied Catch My Disease, and Hottest 100 topper Cigarettes Will Kill You was lithe. There was no surprise that the night ended with an extended take on We’re All In This Together that had all in attendance singing along as Lee walked through the seats and leading the applause.

When he was done, applause was something there was no shortage of indeed.

_CHRIS HAVERCROFT