We’re an honest bunch here at CDX towers, and I guess the first thing to say would be that there is no actual CDX Towers, it’s one of those metaphorical places, like the warmness of a friend’s heart, or baggage reclaim at Heathrow Terminal 5. So I can honestly say that when I got news that I had been given the opportunity to see Benjamin Francis Leftwich live on his current UK tour, I was hugely excited. However, the reason that I was hugely excited was to see his main support act of the tour, Daughter. I have listened to their recent His Young Heart EP more times than I’d care to admit. As for Benjamin Francis Leftwich himself, I’d had a couple of listens to his album, and had heard Atlas Hands quite a few times, but the level of excitement to see him wasn’t all that high.
Monument Valley, a solo singer/guitar player had also joined Benjamin and Daughter for a number of dates on the tour, and this was his last show of the run. This means that of the three acts, all were just playing a combination of acoustic and electric guitar. No drums, no bass, not even a triangle tapped in anger. This leads me on to the main negative point from this gig. This was the only date of the tour that was being played at an O2 Academy, and for this kind of music, it felt like two jigsaw pieces that wouldn’t fit together. O2 Academies are generally quite vapid, impersonal spaces. They work fine for bands and artists that being plenty of noise and colour with them, as they can take control of the room. But on this occasion, the music struggled to take over control of the space. You can see why the likes of James Blake didn’t play at these venues during his live run, it just doesn’t fit.
So onto the performances themselves. Monument Valley was ok, although the tracks did all blur into one giant lump, like a mild cheddar. Daughter were captivating to watch, but had to constantly raise their sound levels to battle the crowd who kept raising their volume as the sound got louder, as important things had to be discussed; you know, things like Facebook, Ed Sheeran, Jack Wills and the like. But what I did get to hear of Daughter was fantastic. There’s a wonderful balance between the vocals and acoustic guitar of Elena Tonra and these fleeting, fretful, sweet and sour electric guitar glimpses from Igor Haefeli. The shyness of Elena is also ridiculously endearing, but this is a great act that seems destined for great things.
After being treated to listening to Takk by Sigur Rós almost in its entirety while waiting, Benjamin Francis Leftwich took to the stage armed only with a couple of guitars and a sparkly backdrop, and showed that he could breathe some life into this venue, and equally take hold of the audience. He opened with 1904 and straight away showed what he is capable of. His voice is engrossing and captivating, and he has a presence that is very watchable. He played a new track called Break The Day Open where he stepped off-mic and switched off his guitar amp, so he was playing completely acoustic. The silence from the crowd was impressive, but it just left me wishing they’d shown at least some of this respect to the warm up acts.
With only one LP and one EP to choose tracks to play from, he helped fill up some time by playing a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s Atlantic City which was a welcome change of pace. He also gave an airing to plenty of other tracks from the LP which sounded good in their stripped back live form, such as Butterfly Culture and Box of Stones. On the final track before the encore the first sing-along moment broke out as he played what is seemingly everybody’s favourite track, Atlas Hands.
So while the venue and the crowd did its best at times to be the fire blanket to the chip pan flame of the evening, the music just about won the fight.
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