13 December 2022 – Max Watt’s, Melbourne – words and pictures by Ashlea Caygill
With the feeling that the music scene is beginning to wind down ready for Christmas and the flurry of tours and gigs that was November over, I was looking forward to catching Alec Benjamin at Max Watt’s. The Arizona raised singer-songwriter was a welcome mid-week event with his indie-pop-folk sensibilities.
After a little bit of confusion at the door I made it in to catch Sydney musician Carla Wehbe. Carla’s Facebook page says that she is a singer-song-writer and producer with a knack for weaving pop melodies and 80’s nostalgia and she arrived onstage wearing a cowboy hat and cowboy boots, holding her acoustic guitar. After a couple of songs, Carla tells us that she is a bit shaky due to a panic attack but gets back on track with a cover of Abba’s ‘Dancing Queen’ and the crowd boost her by singing along.
Carla then plays a couple of originals, ‘Break Your Heart’ and ‘Jupiter and Mars’ unreleased from her upcoming EP that are well received, then tells the crowd they had better …”sing the fuck outta this one…” with ‘Teenage Dirtbag’ then closed her set with another original released earlier this year ‘is forever off the table?’
After a brief interlude, Alec Benjamin took the stage. The first 3 songs had the crowd on their feet dancing and singing along, then Alec took a break to chat to the crowd, letting them know that he was so happy to be back in Melbourne, then correcting his pronunciation to “Mel-bin”. A couple more songs including ‘Hill I Will Die On’ and ‘Death of a Hero’, then take a break to reset the stage.
Alec returned to the stage and the crowd started a clapping chain during the first song that continued into ‘Hypocrite’. Moving through more of the set, I understood why they had taken a break halfway through – this set was mammoth!
Alec played an introspective song that he wrote during lockdowns to help him process called ‘Shadow of Mine’, just piano and vocal, then stopped to assist a fan who had fainted in the crowd. Alec leaves the stage to come back with a leap and a solo with the guitarist. The crowd joins in to sing ‘If We Have Each Other’ and then introduces his band.
The set ends on a gentle note with the rereleased version of ‘Paper Crown’ from last week. Then the piano driven ‘The Way You Felt’ then wrapping up the set with his biggest and best ‘Let Me Down Slowly’. With the generous attention Alec had given the crowd AND the huge set that they had just played, I didn’t expect an encore, but encore they did, coming out with a trio of songs, ‘Water Fountain’, ‘Speakers’ and ‘Steve’. And with that the night was over and I thoroughly enjoyed watching an artist that gave so much to their fans as Alec Benjamin did tonight.
