A well chosen support act can make an evening and Ben did a great job when he picked Talia Rae. Ben has written songs with Talia and tonight gave her the opportunity to give an emotionally intense performance with some excellent songs and performance. Definitely a lady to look out for in the future.
Not A Heartbreak
No Surprises
It was definitely late 90s. I picked up a magazine - can't remember which one. It had a free cd. Now normally I'd find about one track that vaguely interested me on this type of cd but this one had THREE.
Three young male English singer songwriters. Just about to start their journeys, they hadn't even released an album yet.
The three were Blair Dunlop. Luke Jackson & Benjamin Francis Leftwich. Absolutely astonishing how three superb brand new artists all appeared on this one cd. Just blew me away!! And I've actively followed each one's career ever since.
Luke - The Voice. Blair - The Musicality. Ben - The Sensitivity.
All just brilliant and each has found their own place in the company of the finest singer songwriters that the UK has to offer. Normally I manage to catch up with Luke & Blair every year but with Ben, he's a bit more enigmatic and doesn't tour as much as the other two fellas. So I hasn't seen him since his Cardiff Globe show. Not the best place to see him but more of that later.
Ben has just released his 6th album - Some Things Break. Another beautiful statement to add to the fabulous canon of work he is building.
albums and eps to date
2011 - Last Smoke Before The Snowstorm LP 2012 - Into The Open EP 2014 - Home Covers LP
2016 - After The Rain LP 2018 - I Am With You EP 2019 - Gratitude LP 2019 Elephant EP
2021 - To Carry A Whale LP 2024 - Some Things Break LP
He begins his set with a track from said album New York.
NEW YORK
Ben has always had the most sensitive voice of the three boys and his songs reflect this. Armed mainly with just an acoustic guitar for the majority of the evening it highlights his voice to the full.
Now over the years Ben has had his issues. he talks about this in the show but that's where I'll leave it. Suffice to say he hasn't had an easy journey which makes the quality of the songs and his albums even more remarkable. But it is what it is and at the moment he seems to be in a good place.
Accompanied by multi instrumentalist and songwriter Jamie Squire, Ben touches on most of his albums in the performance.
For the second track this evening we had the shimmering Cherry In Tacoma from the Album To Carry A Whale
Cherry In Tacoma
As I said earlier, the last time I saw Ben was in The Globe, totally the wrong venue for such a sensitive young man and his songs. However, I think Ben found his spiritual Welsh home in Acapela Studios. The crowd was so quiet and respectful during the songs you could hear a pin drop and I'm sure this must have pleased Ben no end, a crowd that actually listens to the songs.
I'm not going to give the set away - just give you a few of MY personal highlights of a fabulous evening.
Tilikum
A stunning show - like being caressed into submission with a velvet glove over a sensuous 2 hours.
One of the most intimate moments of the evening as Ben leaves the microphone to give an acapella version on Pictures from his debut album.
Pictures
I have never seen Ben look so comfortable on stage as he was tonight.
And with Jamie to back him up Ben kept the instrumentation and sound just right - simple with just guitar and keyboards with some well placed electronic flourishes via an analogue synth and pedal steel.
A Love Like That
Elephant
Ben straps on the electric for the only time in the evening for of my all time Ben favourites - the shimmeringly gorgeous Butterfly Culture.
Butterfly Culture
Here is a short film about the new album Some Things Break
For the second time tonight Ben leaves the microphone, Guitar in hand and gives the enraptured crowd a stunning acapella version of Atlas Hands. The crowd just went wild.
Atlas Hands
As befits such a reflective and quiet show, Ben and Jamie end the show with the gorgeous Oh My God Please.
I have never seen Ben perform better and I've seen him a few times. I hope he felt the love in the room and comes to visit us again in Acapela Studios.
As I said to his sound man after the show - He should have recorded tonight as a live album. It would have been perfect.
Ah, The 80s. That glorious decade where you only had to wait a week for a new Pop Star or Musical Genre. If you could stand the onslaught of Thatcherite Britain you would have had best time in the vast variety of clubs that sprung up all over the UK. Yes, even down here in Wales. In fact, ESPECIALLY down here in Wales. I can remember people coming from all over the UK just to go to Swansea's nightlife.
And to fill these nightclubs they needed a wide variety of Music. And by God, did the 80s deliver - In Style!!
And from the industrial lands up north in Sheffield came a warrior, dressed in Gold lame, he delivered in his debut album possibly THE Best Album Of The 80's. The warrior's name was Martin Fry and together with his band ABC they brought glamour and sophistication to an audience SO ready for it they hit the heights almost immediately.
With a clutch of hit singles, that debut album, The Lexicon Of Love, has shone like a diamond throughout the 80s and ever since.
ABC, now Martin with some added musicians came to Cardiff tonight and helped the mainly middle aged audience relive it's 80s fantasies.
I've seen ABC several times over the years and they have never let me down, not once. Martin has always given 100% and with the luminous Anne Dudley as a musical cohort tonight conducting the Southbank Sinfonia Orchestra, he and the orchestra and the Band excelled from the first notes of the orchestra warm up.
The show was a show of two halves. As Martin put it, in Part One he opens the 'ABC Songbook' and performs classic cuts from throughout his 40+ year recording career.
For Part 2, we are treated to a complete performance of the whole of Lexicon Of Love, as it was released.
It was a masterclass in performing with an orchestra. The sound was fabulous, which I must admit did surprise me in the barn-like Cardiff Arena so a big THUMBS UP to the live sound engineers who did a splendid job.
The Orchestra, conducted by Anne Dudley took to the stage and played a gorgeous version of the Lexicon Of Love Overture then Martin and the band appear and launch straight into an ABC classic - When Smokey Sings.
WHEN SMOKEY SINGS
Straight away you could see Martin was in fine voice tonight. Before you could draw a breath the band went straight into the lead single from the sequel to Lexicon Of Love with Viva Love. With the Orchestra earning their money on this one it shows just how good The Lexicon Of Love 2 actually is.
VIVA LOVE
With their foot still firmly on the pedal the show returns to the Alphabet City album, that also gave us Smokey earlier, for the next track The Night You Murdered Love.
THE NIGHT YOU MURDERED LOVE
The next track came as a real surprise as the band played the off beat How To Be A Millionaire. For those who remember this one, it is an electronic track with a heavy beat but thanks to Anne Dudley's tender touch it translated beautifully into an orchestral Tour De Force and it got one of the biggest cheers of the evening.
How To Be A Millionaire
With the Orchestra now truly warmed up and sounding sensational, they showed turned once again to the string laden Lexicon Of Love 2 for it's opening track The Flames Of Desire.
The Flames Of Desire
Staying with The Lexicon Of Love 2 the pace was slowed right down with the track The Love Inside The Love with it's John Barry 'Russian themed' Strings and James Bond guitar for me it was another highlight.
In fact I would have been well happy if the show was just The Lexicon Of Love 1 and 2 played in their entirety. And as if to tease me, the next track is the gorgeous ballad from Lexicon Of Love 2, the beautiful Ten Below Zero. Wonderful stuff indeed.
Ten Below Zero
After a string of ballads the mood needed lifting and what better than the dance-inspired track from the 1989 album UP, One Better World.
ONE BETTER WORLD
With too much dancing going on, as soon as I saw the bass player reach for his fretless bass I knew what was coming next, one of my favourite ABC songs, the lovely Ocean Blue.
OCEAN BLUE
They couldn't leave Part 1 on a downer so it's straight back to 1985's How To Be A Zillionaire album for the danceable Be Near Me.
BE NEAR ME
It's easy to forget how many fabulous hits ABC have had over the years and these new treatments with the Orchestra were just fabulous.
My only gripe about Part 1 was that the band didn't play anything from the excellent 1997 album Skyscraping or the follow up to Lexicon, the often over looked Beauty Stab which is 40 this year!! - such as the excellent Skyscraping opener Stranger Things or Beauty Stab's hit S.O.S.
STRANGER THINGS
S.O.S.
After a short intermission it was time for The Lexicon Of Love.
Now I'm not going to run through every track. Suffice to say the band played it in track order with the 4 brilliant hit singles, the backbone to a seminal album.
TEARS ARE NOT ENOUGH
POISON ARROW
The true beauty of the album is shown as the orchestra adds that final piece of the jigsaw that stirred Trevor Horn & Anne Dudley's Magic Dust to create a fabulously dynamic record that has the power to elevate, inspire and conjure hope in the darkest of times. And with the words of Martin Fry ringing across the arena, as the crowd sang every word of the album it truly shows the power of music to unite & heal. Everyone, transported back to their youthful selves for an hour.
ALL OF MY HEART
And finally after the album finished we had the encore - and what song would that be, well a track so good, and sung so well by the audience on the night, they played it twice - the classic
The Look Of Love.
THE LOOK OF LOVE
Proving they can still be relevant if they want to be with The Lexicon Of Love 2, they have cornered the market with magnificent orchestral pop, now all they have to do is come up with another album. Tonight the tour proves they have an audience if they want to continue to make new music. I hope Martin feels so inspired.
Photo of Cardiff Show by the Front Row Queen - Elizabeth Ursula Hirst
