Reviews: Ben Harper at Irving Plaza, Citizen Cope

Ben Harper played at Irving Plaza Wednesday night. I have a picture of the show on my phone, but it sucks. This one, crossing the bridge on the Q-train right before the show is better, but still completely washes out the colors of the sky. It was on FIRE.

Ok, Ben Harper: although he is not my favorite performer, I do like him and I figured I’d pay the highest concert ticket price of the year ($37) to see this guy play in one of the smallest venues he’ll ever play.

Tom Freund opened, and was a male version of Joanna Newsom, but on a string bass instead of harp. His songs had a ‘blues’ quality that worked well for the complex task of singing along to bass-lines. He actually sounded a lot like Mike Doughty (formerly of Soul Coughing). On bass he even had the complex rhythms that makes Doughty interesting. When Freund played guitar, he did not maintain the uniqueness of the bass compositions.

Harper came on with the Innocent Criminals and played great. I expected the crowd to be excited and express it through dancing. Instead, they stood still.

Now I know why: endurance. After a full set with the band, he played a full set solo. (That’s when I stared to wear down.) Then he played another full set with the band again.

All of the Innocent Criminals played like they were worth the higher ticket fee. So although the show itself didn't match buck for buck most Indie groups I see, seeing such talent made it worth the extra dough. Plus, they played over two and a half hours. No complaints, even though I was exhausted by the end.

I saw Citizen Cope play a couple weeks ago at Summerstage. I’ll just summarize: when he is good, he is oh so good, and when he’s not, well, he’s boring. I still like his album, but a lot of his songs just aren’t interesting as a live performance. This was highlighted by the fact that every time he played a good song and the crowd was really into it, he killed the energy by slow-ow-ow-ing it down. Although he was an opener for the Blind Boys of Alabama, he still played no less than three songs for an encore.

I guess my love affair with his music has officially ended.

Picture of Cope courtesy of Lifes Rich Pageant.