Live Review: Ben Harper

With no support act, tonight's event, billed as “an acoustic evening with Ben Harper”, lives up to its title. Taking place at the Plenary, a 5,000-plus-capacity venue within the Melbourne Convention And Exhibition Centre, it's a distant cry from the festival appearances Harper has become renowned for and, despite best efforts, is far from intimate. Positioned behind him on stage is a collection of 13 stringed instruments, ranging from electric guitar, acoustic guitar, lap steel and ukulele, all of which he will play throughout the night. His first acoustic headline tour of the country, Harper draws from a catalogue that spans ten studio albums over 18 years.

He begins with a 12-minute lap steel instrumental, which then segues into Pleasure And Pain, followed by a ukulele rendition of Blessed To Be A Witness. Along with switching various guitars, Harper momentarily invigorates his set with a handful of piano ballads and an inspired glockenspiel number. He also throws in several covers for good measure: Marvin Gaye's 1982 hit Sexual Healing, as well as a homage to the same singer's Trouble Man, The Verve's The Drugs Don't Work and Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, which he says “is for Jeff”.

Insightful anecdotes introduce a handful of songs and offer a rare insight into Harper's personality, punctuating what soon becomes an exhaustive set. Morning Yearning is dedicated to Heath Ledger, who directed its film clip. His lullaby version of Two Hands from the Curious George soundtrack won over his son's pre-school playground. Then Harper tells of a couple who are staying at the same hotel as him that approached him to reveal they used Beloved One at their wedding ceremony recently. The man definitely has an affinity with all things love/spirituality.

In such enormous set, all the hits are naturally present: Steal My Kisses, Diamonds On The Inside, Forever and Excuse Me Mr. But it becomes all too monotonous. With so much musical content, each song and even subject matter – the political, spiritual and environmental – gets lost. There's no disputing Harper is a talented guitarist and songwriter, but it doesn't take sitting through three-and-a-half hours of his music to work that out.