DONNY BENÉT + FRUITY WATER – CHALK, BRIGHTON 13.3.24
Donny Benét – set time 8:30pm to 10:50pm
Six months ago I had never heard of Donny Benét, but then an advert from the wonderful promoter Love Thy Neighbour popped up on my feed and I thought to myself, who the heck is that! However the bait was laid, I was intrigued, so I watched a tour trailer, and it was made like most of Donny’s music videos in a low fi glorious 1980s homage style. Over the weeks I listened to more and more, I got myself on to Bandcamp, bought myself a couple of his albums on CD, endlessly sent his videos to my friends who probably thought I’d gone mad, it had now become a gig I really could not wait for and tonight is the night I’ll finally get to witness the now legendary (in my mind) Donny Benét.
Donny hails all the way from Sydney, Australia where he writes, performs and records entirely by himself at the renowned Donnyland Studios, using a mix of vintage synthesisers and drum machines and last not but not least his tool of power, the bass guitar. The songs themselves often reflecting and poking fun in a fictitious way of his love life.
With the doors opening at 7pm, the crowd gathered in nice and early, and what a crowd it was tonight, plenty of Donny Benét T-shirts being modelled having been bought fresh from the merchandise stand. But not only that, there were some fine 1980s and outrageous suits being worn, I loved that so many had really dressed up for the occasion.
At 8:30pm on the nose, huge cheers went up as Donny arrived and greeted us “Good evening, how are you doing, having a good night so far? We are going to start off with an oldie, but a beauty, this is from my 2020 record called ‘Mr Experience’, it’s called ‘Mr Experience’” and away Donny went plucking those bass strings like a pro. What a way to start the show, you could feel the love in the air.
Donny exuded coolness whenever he spoke “So good to be back in Brighton, I should introduce you to the band. We have Daniel Waples on saxophone, his brother James Waples on drums, and all the way from New Zealand playing for the first time in Brighton, Peter J Cooper. Any Kiwi’s in tonight” Donny asked the crowd, silence, “Oh” sarcastically Donny exclaimed, prompting laughter “Any Australians in tonight?”. Lots of cheers came back “See, nothing for me to prove” he laughed. The band were all wearing sharp suits, Donny himself with his white suit jacket. Donny’s actual birth name is Ben Waples, so I am guessing here Daniel and James are perhaps related to him.
Donny introduced the next song with a funny speech about how he grew up, his looks, disappearing hair and the girls that would ignore him, but how with age he is ‘Moving Up’, another crowd pleaser of a song, with plenty of saxophone to boot.
Completing the trilogy of songs from his 2020 ‘Mr Experience’ album we had ‘Second Dinner’. Donny introduced the song with another story “We had a dinner of fish and chips tonight here in Brighton, high end, but not posh, but this next song is not about cuisine, it’s about making love, an ideal evening for me would be to make love, go out for a nice meal, make love again and go out for a little snack afterwards, so later tonight when you are at home making love to someone….or yourself, just picture me perched on the end of your bed holding a bucket of fried chicken, this song is called ‘Second Dinner’”. A great slow song with Donny almost whispering some of those lyrics in a tantalising way to work the crowd.
Donny’s most recent album ‘Infinite Desires’ came out on the 29th February this year. He told the crowd “We decided to travel around the world promoting it, it was fun to make and we are going to play it for you now, this first one is all about making love and it’s called Multiply”. The bassline on this song was just so good, I do love a bass guitar and was lucky enough to be positioned right in front of Donny, watching him so effortlessly pluck, strum, slap that bass was breathtaking to watch. His image may come across as tongue in cheek, but musically he is incredibly talented. He often does videos on YouTube in the studio where he will discuss the instruments, their origins, how they work and how he records with them, it’s fascinating, yet fun to watch.
Before the next song, all members of the band all picked up their water bottles and took a swig almost in unison. I am not sure if it was deliberate or pure chance, but it prompted laughter and cheers from the crowd. Donny said he was worried about playing the next number when they hit the USA part of their tour. It was his latest single ‘American Dream’ and with lyrics such as “When did we get it wrong; In our world; When did we grow apart; In our world; It’s over, the end of the American dream”, he may have a point. This song came out in January and the music video is well worth checking out.
Donny started to tell us about the next song “A lot of this record was written during the lockdown, we had a really long lockdown in Australia and it got you thinking a lot, one of those thoughts was thinking about what I would like to do, but couldn’t do, this song is called Forbidden Love”. The slowest song of the set so far, one you could imagine being in a smoochy scene from an 80s movie.
Introducing the next track Donny said “I wrote this song around the same time, my working title was ‘Live Life, Love, Love Again’ and it’s kinda my version of Kraftwerk and Electric Light Orchestra meets The Bee Gees, it’s kinda cute and it’s called ‘Hold On Tonight’”. Dan had a great sax part throughout this one.
“That’s the first side of the record done, so we are going to go back to an older song now, one that has had millions of streams and plays and earned $100, well maybe $100” joked Donny, referencing how little artists make despite often such mainstream viewing and airing of their music. It was ‘Konichiwa’, taken from his album ‘The Don’. This song is a stone cold Donny classic, that bass melody, the sax going full on 80s style and all the “ooo’s” and “ah’s”, it is one you won’t get out of your head. So much so I was singing it aloud whilst in the line for the merch stall at the end. It was met with a huge ovation at the end, even more so when Donny took his jacket off “I’m not an object you know….well maybe for a price” he quipped.
The setlist then went back to side two of the new album starting with ‘So Long’, a funky number with a heavy dose of sax, then as Donny put it “Another song funnily enough about love”, ‘Consensual Loving’, a catchy one, much like many of his other songs, you can pick up the words quickly and sing along.
Donny got the crowd going telling us he had only two songs left before he was going to walk off stage and we would all cheer Donny and he’d come back play two more, he also reminded us of the merch stall and for us to buy some records as they were running low and he is in a lot debt, and we’d be repaid through pleasure in our ears. Thus the final two numbers from the new album were played ‘Go Now’ and the slow number ‘Wait Until It Rains Tomorrow’, after which the band left the stage for a minute leaving the crowd calling and chanting for more.
The band came back with Donny asking tongue in cheek “Do you want more, this one is from my 2022 EP ‘Le Piano’, I have decided to bring my comically small piano over from Australia to play it for you” to which he turned to his little piano and went straight into it. I love this song, this was the first one I came across on my YouTube sessions when looking him up, the video is pure cheese, but at the same it’s just so clever, it’s an instrumental song, but boy what a musical journey you get taken on, he even took back to his bass for the final part.
The final song of the evening was ‘Santorini’ taken from the album ‘The Don’. Another crowd pleaser and a great song to finish on.
There were lots of “I Love you Donny” and “Donny you are a sex god” shouts from the crowd throughout the evening, which Donny always met with a thank you, he seemed happy to engage the crowd throughout, always giving humorous and respectful answers no matter what people seemed to throw at him, if anything it gave the evening an almost cabaret show feel to it. The band were really tight, James’s drumming was precision timed throughout, you could not fault Peter’s guitar play or Dan’s saxophone, they were very much there to accompany Donny’s bass guitar, that was the star of the musical instruments and was most definitely louder on purpose, it really is the heartbeat of each of the songs.
I had really looked forward to this concert and was not disappointed in the slightest, I don’t think I’ve ever been to something and just smiled and beamed solidly throughout, the whole ethos of the evening was joy and happiness, everyone I could see in the crowd were just giving out happiness and enjoying it, all dancing in their own unique way without a care in the world. There was a lot of love in the venue tonight, for each other, the music, the band and of course The Don himself ‘Mr Donny Benét’. I really hope he comes back to Brighton again soon.
The UK tour ends on the 15th March in London, before moving to Europe for the remainder of March. Love Thy Neighbour really put on a treat of a show here tonight and pulled it out of the bag with late addition of support act Fruity Water.
Donny Benét:
Donny Benét – vocals, bass guitar, keyboard/piano
Peter J Cooper – guitar
Dan Waples – saxophone
James Waples – drums
Donny Benét setlist:
‘Mr Experience’ (from 2020 ‘Mr Experience’ album)
‘Moving Up’ (from 2020 ‘Mr Experience’ album)
‘Second Dinner’ (from 2020 ‘Mr Experience’ album)
‘Multiply’ (from 2024 ‘Infinite Desires’ album)
‘American Dream’ (from 2024 ‘Infinite Desires’ album)
‘Forbidden Love’ (from 2024 ‘Infinite Desires’ album)
‘Hold On Tonight’ (from 2024 ‘Infinite Desires’ album)
‘Konichiwa’ (from 2018 ‘The Don’ album)
‘So Long’ (from 2024 ‘Infinite Desires’ album)
‘Consensual Loving’ (from 2024 ‘Infinite Desires’ album)
‘Go Now’ (from 2024 ‘Infinite Desires’ album)
‘Wait Until It Rains Tomorrow’ (from 2024 ‘Infinite Desires’ album)
(encore)
‘Le Piano’ (from 2022 ‘Le Piano’ EP)
‘Santorini’ (from 2018 ‘The Don’ album)
Fruity Water – set time 7:30pm to 8:00pm
There was an eleventh hour change in support for tonight’s show. Getdown Services who have been supporting Donny’s UK tour dates were forced to cancel having had their instruments, equipment and passports stolen after the Manchester show. Quite an awful thing to hear, that people can be so low as to steal people’s livelihoods like that, I hope they are recovered or can raise the money to replace them.
Taking a positive from this though meant the wonderful Fruity Water were now on the bill, which came as a very welcome surprise as I walked through Chalk‘s doors. I very much enjoyed Fruity Waters performance at Love Thy Neighbours ‘Triptych’ event at The Hope & Ruin in January, so this really was going to be a fine evening indeed.
Bang on 7:30pm, Adam Bell in his trademark beanie hat and Alan Odgers with his hood up casually walked on stage and set straight to work with their respective instruments, Adam on his guitar and Alan behind his keyboard, synth, controller and laptop set up. With the beats fired up, Alan with his voice changer singing ‘It’s On’ and Adam getting frenzied on the guitar, it was indeed on.
As Adam knelt down to attend to his guitar pedals, the beats changed and we were into ‘Sometimes’, this one was a bit slower with Adam singing, but there was no slowing down for Alan’s dancing and bouncing about behind his kit.
Nine minutes into the set and a key change took us into ‘Water Ballet (Part 1)’, this was a new one on me, a good thumping bass beat and really dreamy guitar work, the track gathered pace getting more frantic with Adam dropping to his pedals again and creating a whole lot of noise on his guitar, and Alan now in full on jumping about mode, we had morphed into ‘Water Ballet (Part 3)’.
You wouldn’t necessarily think dance rhythms and the various layers of beats and drum tracks would go with the often crazy guitar work, but boy oh boy they sure do, magic stuff.
“This is our last song, we only found out about this gig at half five, so we had to throw something hastily together” announced Alan. Speaking to Fruity Water before they took to the stage, they said “being available last minute is their USP, but always will meet the challenge”.
The final track was the most excellent ‘Bye Bye Me’ from their 2018 ‘Thirst Takes’ album. I think this is always the mainstay ending track for them, as it was played the last time I saw them. But what a fine song it is, it’s one you really get dancing to and like most of their songs, it builds and builds, pulling you in deeper and deeper until the inevitable guitar explosion comes and keeps on going. But all good things must come to an end and just like that it was all over, all too fast, the pack down ‘Rhythm Is A Dancer’ song kicked in and Alan was already halfway packing down his equipment whilst Adam continued to force a ton of feedback from his guitar and took a well-deserved sip of his beer.
Fruity Water are on Bandcamp and will be supporting Flamingods at Patterns next Tuesday 19th March. They are well worth checking out, so purchase your tickets HERE.
Fruity Water:
Adam Bell – guitar & vocals
Alan Odgers – keyboard/synth/beats & vocals
Fruity Water setlist:
‘It’s On’
‘Sometimes’
‘Water Ballet (pt. 1)’
‘Water Ballet (pt. 3)’
‘Bye Bye Me’ (from 2018 ‘Thirst Takes’ album)
www.instagram.com/fruitywaterband
