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I used to have this university friend named Dave who was probably the first “hipster” I ever knew. This was so long ago that the term “hipster” had still not come and gone (it’s gone now, right?). To present an example: after getting a pile of beers into him one night he finally admitted that he had adopted his long-standing fervent vegetarianism as a ploy to impress girls, a ploy which backfired on him at least once that I know of.
Anyway, Dave was a pretty good guy overall and a major bonus to his quasi-pre-hipster lifestyle was his interest in being the first to discover the hippest new music out there. He was the first guy to play Joshua Redman to me (for example), and it was through Dave that I first heard the wonderfully soulful Ben Harper, which brings us to this ticket story.
Dave had loaned me his copy of Harper’s second album Fight for Your Mind and I couldn’t get enough of it. Ben’s songwriting was important, vital, and beautiful, easily pivoting between politically-driven, soulful laments for justice and gospel-tinged songs that expressed his eternal love for God, women, and mankind as a whole. The melodies were great and so was his voice. And he played a style/brand of guitar I hadn’t yet heard of, a wooden lap-steel slide sort of thing called a Weissenborn, and he played it well.
It didn’t take me long to become a fan.
And then summer came, the Montreal International Jazz Festival announced its lineup, and I made my picks, including a Ben Harper concert slated for July 2nd, 1997. I was excited!
So excited, in fact, that I barely batted an eye at the knowledge that I’d be racing over to Metropolis for the show following a (much jazzier) John McLaughlin concert at the Theatre Maisonneuve (which was awesome).
And so race over I did, and up the stairs I went into my favourite Montreal venue. I was with a crew (including my friend Dave and his crazy vegetarian girlfriend*) and we collectively parked ourselves halfway back on the floor and absorbed the bliss of my first-ever Ben Harper concert. He played several cuts from Fight for Your Mind (including Power of the Gospel, By My Side, and Burn One Down – the latter of which was inserted into a medley of Bob Marley songs) and a whole lot more from the new album he was touring (The Will to Live), which I already owned.
And man, it was so great. Ben Harper is a magnetic performer who blends the soul of Jimi Hendrix with the conviction of Bob Marley (two artists I will never experience live) into an honest tribute that defines his own sound and legacy. He can reach the back of the the room with one deft fretboard slur and inhabit the hearts of the innocent with a single vocal line. Ah, it was such a fine time, and Ben even gave us two separate encores.
I don’t recall precisely, but with such a crew along I’m betting we all drove back to Ottawa together at the end of the night in my Toyota minivan, replete with pink and green hippie-flowered curtains in the windows and two big peace signs taped onto the pair of fog lights attached to the front bumper (remember bumpers?).
Come to think of it, I think Dave and his lady might have stayed in Montreal. He might have been a bit too hip to be caught riding in the back of such a hippie-mobile.
*The two pronouns are meant to stand independently of one another.
Todd Man Out 