dark. I pulled over to ask if they were ok. The car had broken down and the tow truck was on the way. They were on their way to Splendour In The Grass, but it was looking like they wouldn’t make it and would have to get a greyhound bus back to Sydney. I somehow decided to drop my gear off at the closest service station, go back and pick them up and drive four hours in the opposite direction to get them to an amazing festival. I got them there at 1am, then drove six hours back to Port, arriving at 7am. Lucky I don’t seem to need much sleep! Ben, Once again in Germany you made an impromptu 5-hour detour to play for some special fans you had met at show, can you tell us that story? We met a beautiful lady at one of our first gigs in Germany. She ended up coming to a few more shows with her husband, who was in a wheelchair. Our song Little Darling resonated quickly and strongly with them. She told me her dream was to have me play at their house for them and their close friends. That was a dream I could easily help to make a reality! We had an amazing afternoon in her garden, with a massive bbq lunch and lots of smiling faces. Not only the nicest guy in Aussie music, you have to be one of the hardest working. Doing 40 gigs in 30 days around Europe. What’s your fondest memory of the tour? Thankyou for the lovely comment. There are a bunch of kindhearted, hard-working musicians out there that I know of, and I am just honored to be a part of that community. There are so many fond memories of that European tour, but I guess the
most memorable part would be simply seeing people from the other side of the world singing along to our songs and refreshing my thoughts on the power of music and the connection that can be made with strangers. Straight off a plane and back to Australia to continue the Benjalu Acoustic tour, which is being received really well. Do you plan to release a recording of this strippedback version of the Lu? Well we had a run of shows with the full band first when we got back. It was so good to have the lads back in the van, making noise together on stage again. It’s been amazing on so many levels with this acoustic tour. Seeing and hearing about new connections our friends are having with the songs has been really cool. When we play as a band they are
Credit: Bethany Ryles
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