Ben Kweller, Delta Spirit @Factory Theatre, Sydney(03/10/10)

Tue 12th Oct, 2010 in Gig Reviews

It’s a Sunday night, the same day that Daylight Savings began, so everyone is slightly out of it. The Factory is reasonably well attended, but the vibe is a pretty sleepy one. So far, all signs are pointing towards a pretty lacklustre night.

But that all changes when Delta Spirit walk on stage. With their flannel shirts and shaggy hair they look like The Allman Brothers in all their bluesy, rocking glory. And as soon as they sing the first a capella notes of People Turn Around, ears prick up and conversations fall by the wayside, and anyone who isn’t paying attention quickly snaps to as the band crash straight into Bushwick Blues. It is probably their best song, and so it seems a little odd to be unleashing it so early, but it’s actually a fiendishly clever ploy – no one in the audience can deny the greatness of the song, and from that point on we are all putty in their hands.

Their sound is huge, with the two guitars, bass, drums and keys filling The Factory like nothing I’ve ever seen before. It seems an odd comparison, but I keep wanting to compare it to Mogwai in its fullness and the totality of the experience. There’s a real presence to this sound, and you can feel it in your chest, and coming up through your feet – especially Brandon Young’s drumming, which is simultaneously aggressive and controlled, furious and restrained. He hits the things as hard as anyone, but everything is incredibly precise, propelling all the songs with an astonishing energy that clearly inspires the other members.

That energy has spread to the crowd too, who by now are totally into it. There’s cheering, and whooping, and lots of jumping up and down. So won over are we that we all shimmy on down as instructed by singer Matt Vasquez, and as their gigantic final song (“the first song we ever wrote”, says Vasquez) turns in to Johnny O’Keefe’s Shout everyone is caught up in the awesomeness. And then, just like that, they’re gone. A perfectly curated forty minutes, leaving us begging for more.

If Ben Kweller was feeling any pressure to match his support act, he wasn’t letting it show. He saunters on to stage with the baggy jeans and goofy smile of a California surfer dude (despite his Texan roots), and proceeds to rock us in a very special way.

He plays for close to two hours, touching on each of his five albums from the Drop D, garage-y awesomeness that is Sha Sha to the mellow, twangy, alt-country of last year’s Changing Horses. And, really, it’s all great. It’s a fun, relaxed night – at one point Kweller forgets the lyrics but cruises straight through with a silly little smile, singing “those aren’t the right words, but that’s OK because I’m feeling the vibes.”

And so is the audience, which greets everything with rapturous applause. And, as Matt Vasquez told us earlier in the night, Kweller “can play guitar like a motherfucker”. He’s got it all, from grunge-y riffs to al-country twang, and he plays the shit out of a blues jam or two.

The old tracks, like Commerce, TX, Penny On A Train Track and Walk On Me get a good thrashing, Kweller and his band playing like they might not get another chance. And the audience joins in as well, serenading one another with On My Way and leaping around during Sun Dress after it was requested from the floor.

It was a long set, and it did drag slightly during the downtempo numbers, but mostly I think everyone was just a little exhausted after the jubilation of the rest of the night. As he closed with Wasted and Ready everybody bogeyed into the night aware they had just witnessed something pretty special. And since Kweller announced he is poised to release a new album titled Go Fly A Kite!, we may very well get a chance to do it again soon.

Finally, I would like to offer my condolences to those of you who were not at this gig. Over the past few years I have seen a fair few bands do their thing, and only a select handful have been more awesome than both Ben Kweller or Delta Spirit were on this night.

Check out the photos from the gig