Ben Kweller Is Bloody Good
We saw a crazy thing today at Austin City Limits. The Gotham Gal and I went to see Ben Kweller play. We love Ben and his new record, Ben Kweller, is awesome.
He came on late and told everyone he was sorry but he'd had a double nosebleed. But he said it had been fixed and he was going to play.
Well it hadn't been fixed and by the third song, his guitar had blood all over it (as you can see this photo). It was kind of gross but also pretty incredible that he could play with that going on.
Then asked the crowd if anyone had a tampon and a bunch were thrown up on the stage. He stuck in his nose and played "This Is War" from the new record.
That didn't do much to help as the tampon swelled up and fell out.
So he went to the piano and played an excellent rendition of "Falling" and then called it quits.
It was a bummer, he only got to play five songs, but it was also one of the more gutsy things I've seen in all my days of watching live music.
Years ago, I saw Pete Townsend play with blood all over his strumming hand. That was pretty gross. But I think the nosebleed had to be worse.
Posted by: JayR | September 17, 2006 at 09:03 PM
I was reading your fremium post http://avc.blogs.com/a_vc/2006/03/my_favorite_bus.html when I saw your Ben Kweller and Las Manitas posts also – nice job on all fronts! The fremium insite is valuable, Las Manitas deserves the praise and on Ben Kweller...I was talking with my brother-in-law a few hours ago here in Austin and he was describing that same Ben K scene yesterday at ACL. We both agreed that his is a show that everyone gets into because he's a natural, he's in-the-moment and doesn't have a drop of rock star angst.
If you get back to Las Manitas before you leave my recommendation is the Enchiladas de Michoacán.
Posted by: Jim | September 18, 2006 at 12:24 AM