Ben Houge, Not Me

Ben Houge played live at Not Me last night. If you don't know who Ben Houge is yet, you've not been paying attention. More on him on this very blog here. His show was part of the Indie Heart Attack night they do there. Doesn't ring any bells? Again, more on IHA here.

Not Me isn't realy set up to be a live music venue to be honest. It's a smallish bar on Dongping Lu with the music side of things looked after by Reggie from STD and it tends to be mostly DJs playing there. So Ben was set up with his keyboard on the dancefloor and his laptop sat on the shelf behind him. I got there ridiculously early but there was a decent sized crowd (the biggest I've seen at an IHA night) by the time Ben opened his first set. He'd told me earlier in the night that his first set would be an "acoustic" one which confused me a little because he had a keyboard and a laptop, but turned out he meant the first set was keyboard only and the second (a little later in the evening) was laptop-backed. He also mentioned he might play a third, crazier set if there were still people left later in the night but, as it was a school night, I'm afraid I headed home after his second set and a bit of Archie's DJing.

So yeah, last night Ben was in synth-pop mode and it was great. He played the songs from his 3 Heart-Shaped Cookies EP with 99 Men, transforming the short pop-punk tracks into upbeat piano Ben Folds Five-esque songs, as well as some of his electro-pop stuff and my personal favourite 口口口口口口口口. Last time I saw him play this material, it was at the Antidote Festival in Zhujiajiao but he was the opening act that day and people were still drifting in when he started. He also had to borrow a keyboard stand from Resist! Resist! which was a little short for him. This meant he played the set legs akimbo as it were (at the time I actually just thought he was affecting a rock star pose). But this time everything was the right height, the crowd was good and totally into it and he showed what a great performer he is. If you get a chance to see him live, do so.