Ben Howard at the Grand Arena

Wednesday 22 July 2015

It was freezing outside on Wednesday night – luckily the queue outside GrandWest, though very long, was moving pretty swiftly. Inside it was equally full – it was still early Cape Town had shown up in its masses for Ben Howard.

Joburg’s Bye Beneco kicked off the night’s performances and I spent their set mildly struggling to decide how I felt about them. First off, I should mention that I always feel a bit bad for opening acts for internationals at big shows as opening is a bit of a double-edged sword. On the one had it’s a great opportunity and they get to play a nice venue, expose their music to a large audience and hopefully win-over some new fans. On the other hand, no-one’s really there to see them and some people choose to spend the opening set in the traffic or the beer queue.

As Bye Beneco started up there was a decent crowd and they were watching but with what felt more like mild curiosity than undivided attention. I confess though I enjoyed the band musically I found their live performance couldn’t hold my interest. The combination of the huge stage/venue and the general apathy toward opening acts (both in terms of the audience and the technical crew – the lighting wasn’t varied at all during the set from what I saw) unfortunately go the better of them this time around.

There was a palpable change of energy for the headliner; now while this was never going to be a jump-all-night-and-shriek-yourself-hoarse kind of show there’s a definite emotional intensity about Ben Howard’s music and the swelling crowd had a buzzing aura of concentration and focus about them.

As he was originally scheduled to play at Kirstenbosch earlier this year, I couldn’t help wondering if the botanical gardens wouldn’t have been a more fitting venue for the British singer-songwriter. The performance would soon lay my doubts to rest however – the full arena provided a surprising amount of intimacy and the lighting, though for the most part quite moody and understated, beautifully complemented the atmosphere the music created and was really quite magical, especially during the darker songs like (my personal favourite) Black Flies, which also featured some mesmerising visuals on the big screens.

When artists don’t acknowledge the crowd it’s usually either because they’re ego-maniacs, empty personality-deficient bores or shy and a bit uncomfortable on stage. Watching him shuffle on stage with a steaming cup of tea (it could’ve been coffee but he’s British and folky, so I’m going with tea) before performing most of his set behind tightly closed eyes and a mask of raw emotion I’m inclined to classify Ben Howard in the ‘shy’ category. He doesn’t have the most dynamic or charismatic stage presence, he just does his thing with his band and let’s the music do the work. And work it did.

Nearing the end of his set he mumbled his hellos and thank yous to the crowd, and again he sounded genuine and sweet enough to solidify the ‘shy’ classification in my mind. “It’s our first time in Africa…we’ve mainly been touring and playing the new stuff but we’ll play some older stuff tonight because you haven’t had a chance to hear it yet…thank you for being so warm”.

The crowd saved their shrieks for the end, when they drew him back out for a two song encore that culminated in the majestic Esmerelda – when it reached its crushing instrumental climax it was truly quite breath-taking. Even though I’m just a casual fan I thoroughly enjoyed the show, it was the perfect way to spend an icy winter night.