Benjamin Tod + Leon Majcen
Thur, Jul 16 @ 7–11pm
Tickets $43.65
Sitting at a corner café table, Benjamin Tod’s eyes light up when asked what it’s like to finally embrace happiness and accept love. “I’m kind of settling into my age, into allowing myself to be happy,” the 33-year-old says. “For years, I led myself and the people around me into a lot of unnecessary darkness. And now, I’ve learned how to give and receive affection — it’s helped heal a lot of parts of myself.”
The relaxed, calm aura is a sign of a human being who has overcome lifelong personal demons, one who has finally become liberated — not only in his personal life, but also his music. Titled Shooting Star, his latest album carves a fresh creative path for Tod, a storied singer-songwriter and frontman of Lost Dog Street Band. The self-proclaimed “proprietor of misery” finds himself transcending into a life of gratitude, patience, and stability.
For this latest solo endeavor, Tod tapped some of Nashville’s finest to conjure country gold. Shifting from his signature somber tone of struggle and survival, Tod and his coal fire throat radiate a feeling of clarity and new beginnings — more Hank Williams than Bob Wills, more Marty Stuart than George Jones.
With a thick thread of honkytonk woven into it, the album leaves fingerprints on seemingly every style of country, from outlaw to red dirt, folk to indie — the ethos of his life and career at this juncture howling loudly “obstacles are opportunities.”