It doesn’t seem that long ago that a little known R&B singer called Ben Drew came out with his first brutally veined hip hop acoustic track, ‘Sick 2 Def’. If you haven’t heard it already, here is a lyrical sample: ‘like a necrophiliac raping a corpse up the anal passage whilst contracting genital warts’.
Judging by those lyrics, you wouldn’t have expected that he’d eventually be playing headline shows at massive venues like the 02 Arena, Bournemouth BIC and tonight, the Brighton Centre. But Plan B is a musical chameleon, which makes him one of the most intriguing characters in pop music at the moment.
Tonight was a night of two halves, consisting of two separate musical shows laid out in the style of films. Although that in itself sounds quite confusing, the cinematic layout of the concert actually seemed to work well for him.
The first ‘film’ was the ‘Defamation Of Strickland Banks’, in which Plan attempted to adopt his persona as Strickland Banks – a soul singer who is sent to jail for a crime he did not commit. In the first half of the show, he went through most of ‘Defamation…’, giving particularly strong performances of ‘Prayin’ and ‘The Recluse’. His backing vocalists also impressed, giving a Mo-Towny feel to tracks like ‘Welcome To Hell’ and ‘Love Goes Down’.
Although the slickness of the accompanying films matched that of Plan B’s purple suit, they were sometimes a little distracting from the actual performance. At times, it was too easy to get lost in the movie clips, which sometimes made us feel like we were watching a huge music video, along with 5,000 other people.
Plan B has shown he is a man of many talents, having acted in the Michael Cain vigilante thriller, ‘Harry Brown’ and Noel Clarke’s gritty flick, ‘Adulthood’. He has now turned his interests to directing films; with his directed debut, ‘Ill Manors’, released last summer. The crime drama tells a gritty tale of eight different characters from Plan B’s native Forest Gate and was released in wake of the London riots.
Following a ten minute beat boxing interval from Plan B’s friend and collaborator Faith SFX, he then presented the second film, ‘Ill Manors’. The combination of slick film excerpts and Drew’s gritty lyrics completely changed the vibe of the show, effectively giving the audience two gigs for their money.
It’s very clear that Plan B has many musical influences. During the encore, he put his own soulful spin on a medley of hits by several different artists, including Michael Jackson (Beat It), Toots & The Maytals (Pressure Drop) and Justin Timberlake (Cry Me A River).
To cap things off, he then performed his two big tracks he did with Chase & Status; ‘Pieces’ and ‘End Credits’, which came on suitably during the end credits of the night’s second film. A blinding performance of ‘Stay Too Long’ and the sinister outro of ‘Ill Manors’ then brought the night to a close, proving that Plan B will not be forgotten in a hurry.
Brighton Centre, Monday 11th February 2013
Words by Jack Dutton
