Lizotte’s, Newcastle
Thursday March 17, 2016 :
He’s been writing and performing songs for the best part of 25 years, but if anyone thought Australian songwriting stalwart, Ben Lee, was showing any signs of creative fatigue, Thursday night’s performance at Lizotte’s Newcastle was a major reality check. Having just last year released his tenth record solo, Love is the Great Rebellion, Lee brought with him to his two-night run at the suburban venue, a slew of new material.
For anyone who hasn’t had the pleasure of seeing Ben Lee, or at least since the release of his first foray into seriously conceptual albums, 2011’s Deeper into Dream, (this was followed up in 2013 with the much-critiqued Ayahuasca: Welcome to the Work, the result of Lee’s experimentation with the South American psychoactive tea), his shows are a bit of a balancing act, as Lee so forthrightly explains, between his increasing interest in the complexities new age belief and the well-trodden pop ground many expect him to occupy.
“I’m going to play a few new tracks that I’m very excited about and then we’re going to get into some old ones so depending on your view, that bit might be one long restroom break,” Lee explained with a smile before kicking off the night, fittingly and familiarly enough, with the opening and title track from his wildly successful Awake is the New Sleep, and The Rebirth of Venus confection, ‘Rise Up’.
Then came the interesting part. Lee revealed how he’s been working on a new record with the working title of An Initiation of Fire within a Domestic Setting, a work which he says has been fuelled by a fascination with “the secret spiritual lives of regular people”. But as Lee himself says, this interest in things like perennial philosophy and the awakening of consciousness comes hand in hand with a fear of remaining relevant, that he might one day look up and be playing to no-one.
But these new songs, as played by Lee alone on stage at Lizotte’s on Thursday night, are on first listen some of his best work in this more overtly philosophical era post-Ripe. These new tracks, from the rally cry against post-modernism with a childish charm, which for the purpose of this review we’ll call ‘What’s Good Is Good’, to the revealing ‘So Much Bigger Than Me’, with its lyric, “It’s equilibrium I seek so I’m fit to study at the feet of the Archangel of Fire”, for the most part, see Lee achieve a satisfying middle way between pop and spiritual intellectualism.
This wonderful sense of balance was, of course reflected in the set. Our work as guinea pigs was rewarded in the back end of the set with a offering of fan favourites: ‘Gamble Everything for Love’, ‘Begin’, ‘Body of Love’, ‘Forgiveness’, ‘Everything is Ok’, ‘Happiness’, ‘Into the Dark’, ‘Song for the Divine Mother of the Universe’ and ‘We’re All in this Together’. ‘Catch My Disease’ and ‘Cigarettes Will Kill You’ were notable causalities of the stripped-back solo show but honestly, having heard Lee’s latest musical gems, not hearing the hits felt like a fair trade off.
Reviewer: Amelia Parrott
Photographer: Caitlin Schokker
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