Relentless7 is Ben Harper’s new band. They announced two shows around noon on Wednesday at The Mint, a small venue near my house. I decided to throw caution to the wind and get a ticket to the Thursday night show and check it out.
Technically the Thursday show, was actually on Friday, as the doors opened at midnight and the show was scheduled to start at 12:30am. Thankfully, the show started pretty much on time. I found a nice spot near the middle of the stage, with only a couple of girls in front of me. Basically I was no more than 3-5 feet from Ben Harper.
The show was fun. The band played an 11 song set. It’s a little more “rock” oriented than his stuff with the Innocent Criminals. There were a few issues with the sound, but I think that mainly was because of the venue. Too many clubs have the mains up so loud, and then the guitars/bass/drums up so loud, that the vocals can get drowned out. A few songs into the set, Ben had them turn around one of the monitors to use it as a vocal field. So yeah, the mix wasn’t great in the venue.
I’ve got a couple pictures from my Blackberry, that I may upload later, I haven’t had a chance to see if they are worth putting out there.