  Ben Harper Concert Last night was terrible for me. My toothache got worse and worse all night (like a dumbass, I kept messing with it). The weird part: the tooth that aches is actually a crown, not a real tooth. I'd had a root canal several years ago, so there shouldn't even be a nerve there, but it is incredibly painful and sensitive right now. Do nerves grow back? I tried going to bed early, but only stayed down a few hours.
I got up and got my mailings ready and goofed around for awhile. Around 4am, I got back into bed and started reading "Proof" a book by Dick Francis. I got tired and tried to fall asleep, but after a bit, I had to get up again to put some Orajel on my toothache. It was after daylight when I finally fell asleep. I kept going in and out of sleep all day. I started worrying, that between the toothache and lack of sleep, I wouldn't be able to go to the concert.
I forced myself to stay in bed until 6pm. I wasn't tired, but the toothache was causing my jaw and ear to hurt. Regardless, I got up and got ready to go to the show. I'm very glad I did. JP arrived about 20 minutes later than he'd planned, but we got to Ruth Eckerd Hall and were in our seats in plenty of time. The opening band, Mofro, came out and promptly knocked me out.
They were great! I had downloaded some of their stuff the other day to check them out, but their CD does them no justice. The singer played some wild ass harmonica, very reminiscent of Robert Plant's playing on some of the early Zeppelin albums, and had a great, bluesy voice. Their keyboard player had a very Doors-like sound on a lot of songs. The whole band was great, really. They played for about an hour.
After their set, JP ran out to the lobby and bought their CD (as well as Ben Harper's first CD as well). I'll bet he's glad he did that now. After the stagehands cleared Mofro's gear off the stage, Ben and his band, The Innocent Criminals came out. Wow! What a great show! Ben was in very good voice, and his guitar playing was excellent, but what really blew me away was when he sat down and played the slide guitar.
He was just phenomenal. His bassist took two solos during the show and was impressive (very, very funky). The percussionist was really something special too. Hell, the whole band was great! They played: Don't Take That Attitude To Your Grave Excuse Me Mr. I Shall Not Walk Alone Brown Eyed Blues Temporary Remedy Everything Ground On Down Sexual Healing Steal My Kisses Diamonds On The Inside Touch From Your Lust Alone So High So Low Burn One Down 1st encore: Please Bleed Walk Away Waiting On An Angel Roses From My Friends Pleasure and Pain Blessed To Be A Witness 2nd encore: With My Own Two Hands/War They played about 3 hours, including 2 encores!
For the first encore, Ben came out alone and played a short acoustic set. It was great getting to hear him play like that. Right before he went into "Waiting For An Angel", the sound system went out. He played anyway. With no amplification, we all had to be absolutely silent so we could hear him. That was really something, a very strange and beautiful thing.
Leave it to one asshole in the back to try and ruin the moment for everybody. Ben, heard almost as a whisper (or a prayer) was singing this really beautiful song, and some jackass yells out "Louder!!! ", to everyone's disgust. During the next song, the same idiot yells out "The best slide player ever!!! " He yelled it again and someone else yelled out "Shut up a-hole!! " ...
I swear I saw Ben flash a brief smile at that. Thankfully, the system came back up again, so only 1 1/2 songs were interrupted. After a few more acoustic songs, the band came out and joined him again and they played several more songs. At the end of the set they thanked everyone again and it looked like the end of the show, so everybody started heading out. I saw that they hadn't turned anything off onstage yet, nor had they brought the house lights up, so JP and I hung out a little longer. Glad we did: they played a 2nd encore!
They did "With My Own Two Hands" with a bit of Bob Marley's "War" mixed into it. After the show, JP headed out to the back, to try and get an autograph. There were about 20 or 30 of us out there, but people began leaving after an hour or so. Eventually there was just JP, me, and six others (two couples, two other guys). Ben's percussionist, Leon Mobley, came over and talked with us and signed things for some people. He seemed really nice, shaking everyone's hand and chatting with us.
We saw Ben come out and go to his bus and one of the guys yelled for him to come over and he said he would. Maybe ten or fifteen minutes later, he did. What a great guy. He was very gracious and friendly, thanking all of us, shaking everyone's hand, and signing things for everyone. He signed the cover of his "Welcome To The Cruel World" CD that JP had just bought between sets and he even signed the CD itself (without JP asking him to). I usually don't ask for autographs myself, but I had him sign my ticket stub.
He hung out and talked for maybe ten minutes. He was talking about how he liked seeing a nice cross section of people at this show (the older, Ruth Eckerd season ticket holders mixed with people my age and the teenage crowd) and said that he had even had several generations of one family at one of his recent shows. I said something like "yeah, good music can cross any boundry" and he seemed genuinely appreciative of that (he even made a point to shake my hand again before he left). Pretty darn cool... 
