Ben Harper...

Last night I went to see Ben Harper play at the legendary Carnegie Hall!

It was a special 'acoustic evening with Ben Harper' - a solo show, just him, a chair, a piano, a xylophone and 13 guitars! He had everything set up nice and neatly on the stage all ready for a long night of amazing music...

The stage looked incredibly (but brilliantly) bare, without any huge amps, not big lighting rigs, no curtains or anything. I'm not sure what the stage usually looks like at Carnegie Hall, but it seemed odd not to have any kind of curtain or anything.

There was a huge applause when Mr. Harper took to the stage and sat down with a lap steel guitar. It was amazing the sound that he was making just on his own, it was beautiful to hear some of the bigger songs sounds a bit more stripped back too.

Although it was a pretty big venue, he managed to make it feel like an intimate gig, he was telling stories and interacting with the crowd, he kept saying how appreciative he was of all the 'love in the room'... it certainly felt like everyone was having a great night.

He played for nearly 3 hours, and I think he played every single instrument on his stage (expect one guitar). He played all the songs I love, a couple of new songs, a Marvin Gaye cover, a Bruce Springsteen cover and an amazing Jeff Buckley cover or Hallelujah.

I think there were about three standing ovations for him throughout the night (I've never seen that before), and he said at the end how New York had shaped him and his music more than any other city and that he'd never experience a night like that again... he genuinely seemed quite overwhelmed with everyone's response.

I was up in the heavens so my photos didn't come out very well, and everyone was getting told off for taking videos, so I wasn't able to get any of my own - but I found this great one on Youtube. This was the last song the Mr. Harper played. He moved his chair to the very front of the stage, away from the microphone and sat there with his un amplified ukulele and managed to absolutely fill the room...

(Thank you to whoever's video this is, I hope you don't mind me using it on this blog)

 It was an absolutely amazing evening in a really special venue, it was yet another New York gig that I'll never forget!