Flying into New York that morning I had little idea of what to expect from Ben over the next two days. Don’t get me wrong, I have known his music intimately for the last 15 years, but this was different. Ben was finally healthy enough to tour again which led me to believe that this was going to be a stellar weekend.
It is something of an oddity to fully let loose on a Thursday night at Cielo. What time do I have to be at work tomorrow? That’s right, midnight, when Ben goes on again. In between cigarettes he mysteriously appears in the booth, a sign of just how deep and strange the night would become. Chris Annibell had warmed up for him and sent the room into this deep tech sound that almost felt a week too early for Halloween. After taking the reigns Ben kept it there. Tonight was for all the heads, the people who cared more about sound than dancing. Ben later expressed the strangeness of the night to me, it was a long trip over and he had been in town six hours less than me, which is saying a lot. This cloud did have a silver lining as it gave him the opportunity to reach back to the familiar and a whole host of unheard EBTG reworks came through the speakers. We may want to hear the newest tracks out there I doubt any of us have a problem losing it on the dance floor to music we know and love, especially when its creator has re-crafted it. Before I knew it the deep darkness I had known was over with one fatal track. At 4 am Ben drops an insanely sexy Parisian version of “Just Be Good To Me” by the SOS Band. It was as though he was speaking to the whole of the US saying, “ This is me, I am finally here, sorry for the delay, can we get back to the way it was in the good old days?”
Great photos!