REVIEW: BENNY SINGS @ BRIGHTON MUSIC HALL 10/3
By: Shandra Back
Blue Raspberry coats the insides of the Brighton Music Hall like a slushie on a too-hot day. Pops of cherry swirl together and the night oscillates in shades of grape. Benny Sings, Amsterdam-based songwriter, producer and artist, stands centerstage, blonde ringlets encasing his head like a helmet made of clouds.
The musician dropped into the Brighton Music Hall on Tuesday night to share a celebration of his new album, Young Hearts, and 20th anniversary of music. The album in a few words is “Feel good. Beach. Happy-sad. Weird soul,” said Benny in a pre-show interview.
The opener, Dana and Alden, a brother duo from Eugene, Oregon warmed up an already toasty crowd. Many crowd goers knew the band members by name and were screaming at Alden, the drummer, who also is known by his TikTok handle Gucci Pineapple. Thriving on eccentricity, Alden’s high nasally voice cut through chatter with song commentaries and the occasional “meow.”
A bar on both sides of the room gave space for mingling and sipping. Aside from occasional and obscure remarks of love from unknown corners of the room, people stood, bobbed and clapped along at appropriate times.
Benny’s movements evolved with the night. Lips pressed up to the mic, he shot the crowd an occasional finger wag. The fingers then moved on to mirror themselves much like a child playing pretend composer.
The crowd–antsy to clap, cheer and shake butt–energized the band and they pushed it back. A circular bounce, was an energy ascension as the songs progressed.
Throughout the night, Benny Sings does just that, he sings. There’s not much dialogue between him and the audience in the first half. Yet, while each song melts right into the next, there is a stark contrast when hands stop playing and lips cease movement. The band slips away and Benny puts everyone on an imaginary knee to reminisce about his journey to music.
“I had to come up with a plan, he said. “And one of those plans was music.”
After 20 years since the release of his first song, Benny sat down to the piano to play it again. Yet, instead of plincking it out alone in his old home, this time it’s in front of hundreds on a stage drenched in light.
Following the intimate moment, the band leaps back onstage as if the ground is too hot to stay still. Yet Benny is on a higher level of heat: an imaginary punching bag placed in front of him center stage.
“Poom, poom, poom!” His arm movements were almost audible.
The setlist hops around from old to new. Classics like Rolled Up and Sunny Afternoon are mixed with newbies like Distance and Young Hearts. Nearing the end, however, the bopping sounds meld into something not on any of Benny’s albums.
Moving into a groovy Drake Passionfruit cover, the crowd doesn’t question, just continues to bounce and bop.
And eventually,
“This is the last song…”
“NO!” It’s a collective opinion.
“Benny don’t leave!” Yells another corner of boppers.
The band grins and proceeds anyway.
There’s a shift as the bounces elongate and all the instruments onstage smooth out. In an appreciation of a most supportive crowd, Benny steps back from the mic to let every bopper in the room serenade him with his own lyrics.
Concluding the night with Love Will Find A Way, Benny urges the audience to belt the lyrics louder as if the rising decibels could produce a rise in love levels in the space. It works. Hands on his heart and then arms out, Benny soaks it in and shoots it right back out to Boston.