Six Ft Hick + Gentle Ben And His Sensitive Side

I hit the Espy front bar and was greeted by a growing crowd of beer swilling monsters and old school St Kilda heathens. Gentle Ben and His Sensitive Side locked in their spurs and delivered an arresting show combining creepy ballads, Spanish murder riffs and some good old dirty country picking rock. It was the first time I had seen these guys live and they displayed a fantastic range. Great catchy guitar riffs and the drummer rattles the kit with a tender touch of a giant monster, a solid bass sound and Gentle Ben delivers a superb vocal range moving from choir boy to a spitting tiger snake in an instant. He prowls the stage like an acrobatic Erroll Flynn on a litre of chrystal meth. When he launched into some flamenco stamping off stage onto a table caused some smart arsed punter to try and place a beer bottle in the man’s nether regions. Gentle Ben suddenly turned into barroom brawler and shaped up for a rumble. The smartarse’s face rapidly turned into a pale bed sheet. But Ben’s sensitive side reigned as he returned to the sweating stage and finished off a memorable set. Most songs from memory were off recent release “ Sober Light of Day” but my personal favourite was killer track “The Beginning of the End”.

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