These are captures of English musician Ben Watt with ex-Suede guitarist Bernard Butler when they performed at the Drake Hotel in Toronto. My familiarity with Ben Watt was when he was part of the alt-pop duo, Everything But The Girl. Home Movies – Best of the Everything but the Girl was the first CD I ever bought back home, at the time cassettes were the predominant medium for music. The songs that he performed that evening were a bit dark songs but have a message of resilience. Watt said something like “whatever sh*t life throws at you, you have to go on and survive.” He shared stories about the album, a song that he wrote when he and his siblings went to a place where they were growing up, a song that he wrote after is father passed and a song he wrote for his brother in law right after his sister passed. Unfortunately his sister was looking forward to reading a book he was writing at the time but she was not able to, she passed just right before the book was published. I picked up the album Hendra from iTunes (and no, this is not the first album I bought from iTunes, in case whoever is reading this thinks that’s the case).

As of this writing, Ben is currently on tour, please visit his website at http://www.benwatt.com for more information. And if he’s playing near you or if you have a chance to hear him perform live, please do yourself a favor and come see the show.

Thank you to Collective Concerts (www.collectiveconcerts.com) for the photo pass.