Brendan Benson / Psychid / Hal: Manchester Academy 21 April 2005

Sometimes it don't matter what's happening in your life. Maybe things aren't going too well with your girl - maybe she's dumped you because you're too high maintenance. Maybe your job sucks - maybe they're gonna fire your ass, because - hell, your heart ain’t in it, you know it and they do too. Maybe nothing is going right. Maybe the front of a bus is looking like a viable (end of) life choice. Then you hear that sound and it kick-starts your heart the way only truly redemptive rock'n'roll can. The roar that greets Brendan Benson's White Stripes' covered monster 'Good To Me' is a case in point. It's like you replaced guitar strings with sunbeams, boiled up every Badfinger, Raspberries, Cheap Trick triumph into stock and then served it up as the perfect powerpop anthem it is. The razor cheeked, leather jacketed Benson is singing how his girl will always be true to him - and we're all singing, this audience of his best mates, true to me, true to me. It's glorious.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves. Hal are up first. Two twenty-something brothers, Dave and Paul Allen, hailing from Dublin, cruising a similar vein to The Thrills (in other words, they write sun drenched Californian melancholia, Buffalo Springfield by way of The Band with a few smidgens of The Everleys and maybe a pinch or two of The Beach Boys thrown in for good measure), named after the computer from 2001 and Burt Bacharach's one-time partner Hal David. We are treated to the Edwyn Collins' produced new single, 'Play the Hits', the sweetly Father Ted-ish 'What a Lovely Dance' and the jauntily heartbreaking 'Worry about the Wind', along with a smattering of other tracks from their debut self-titled album. They are not the greatest band in the world - but they show promise and (if they can sidestep the British press' habit of elevating the merest hint of potential to the best thing since sliced bread, only for said sliced bread to fall on its side) they could well be a band worth keeping an eye on.

A second support separates Hal from Brendan Benson - but, respecting the wishes of my mother (who always said 'if you haven't got anything nice to say about four people who obviously look like they have mental health issues, don't say anything at all'), I'll let you discover the slender joys of Psychid for yourself (but, just for the record, and cos I'm a bad person, imagine Moby singing falsetto in a band that was desperate to carve a mildly avant-garde metal niche for itself).

But we were talking about redemptive rock'n'roll, weren't we? Music that brings you out of yourself. Brendan Benson has recorded three albums (97's ‘Lost Mississippi’ - which got him sacked from Virgin and led to five years in the wilderness - 03's ‘Lapalco’ and the recently released ‘Alternative to Love’), and (thanks in part to patronage of the White Stripes' Jack White, who recorded ‘Elephant’ at Brendan's house) is now making up for lost time by writing some of the best guitar pop music to be heard in the first half of this decade. We're treated to the best tunes from ‘Lapalco’ and ‘Alternative to Love’ - 'Folk Singer', 'You're Quiet', 'Tiny Sparks', 'Metarie', forthcoming single 'Cold Hands (Warm Heart)', 'Them and Me', 'Get It Together' and 'Spit it Out', along with a bunch of brand new tunes that have yet to grace anything - and the audience go crazy for it. There are people singing every word - and these are the kind of people who don't regularly do that kind of thing, you can tell. There are people grinning like fools, jumping up and down, shouting Brendan's name (they don't want particular songs, they just want to say 'alright' to Brendan - and he's grinning back, in that way you do when you're faced by enthusiastic lunatics).

Sometimes it don't matter what's happening in your life. All you need or want is rock'n'roll. It might sound stupid. You might not understand. But, if you were there, shoulder to shoulder with the hordes worshipping young Brendan Benson, you'd know. Rock'n'roll can save your soul.

words: Pete Wild

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