Benefits

Benefits are like Spinal Tap. Their drummers mysteriously disappear. Once again, they are without a drummer. This time, rather than finding a new temporary drummer, they decided to strip their setup back to the original two members, Robbie Major and Kingsley Chapman. I think this tour was a road test both for new material and the new setup. It both cases it worked. I think this is the band’s final form.

This was my first visit to the George Tavern. A weird affair. Throughout the evening, people were coming in and out to go to the back room which remained open to the locals. There appeared to be no idea who or who hadn’t paid and it seemed anyone could wander in to see the band simply by saying they were going to have a ‘local drink’. I walked in as the bands were sound checking. No one seemed to care. It felt a bit like an old fashioned local with a ‘turn on’ and locals who didn’t care for such things, would go through to the back room where there would be a meat raffle. I can see why people are fond of this place. Although the amount of ‘Shoreditch-types’ wandering in, I doubt any of them know what a meat raffle is. Throughout the evening, I was wondering what the locals down at Priory* would think of Benefits. (*Social club in Middlesbrough, that my parents used to go to when I was a kid)

Weirdly, despite all the bright young things wandering into the back room, the audience looked very much a 6Music audience. This constantly surprises me with Benefits. They are a political band, talking about the ills of the society. I expect them to resonate with the youth, who we hear are more politically motivated than we were at their age. Yet their audiences always seem to be filled with people from the generation before them. Maybe you have to have experienced both a Labour and Tory government and still seen a decline in society to understand hopelessness and anger that Benefits express?

With their new set up. There was a risk their music might have lost some of the dynamics to their anger. Surprisingly, I didn’t miss the drummer. Robbie seemed to have added a few pedal boards to give him more options to make noise, adding in a violin to drench the sound with squeals and feedback. Kingsley, ever engaging, channelling his anger towards the audience, although this time in flashes of movement, as the headache inducing lights, strobed and pulsated as if they were channelling Kingsley’s emotions. (very challenging to photograph without a flash). Thankfully, their live show remains an intense and visceral experience.