Singer/Songwriter Benjamin Clementine Announces Fall U.S. Tour Dates 2015
BENJAMIN CLEMENTINE ANNOUNCES FALL U.S. TOUR DATES;
DEBUT ALBUM AT LEAST FOR NOW OUT NOW ON CAPITOL RECORDS
The acclaimed London-born, Paris-based singer, songwriter and pianist Benjamin Clementine has announced Fall U.S. tour dates in support of his stunning debut album At Least For Now, which was released this summer on Capitol Records. Following his buzzed about debut U.S. performances in New York and Los Angeles this Spring, Clementine will return to NYC and LA, as well as making debuts in Washington DC, Chicago and San Francisco. Clementine has sold-out shows across Europe, and played festivals this summer including the Björk-curated main stage at Wilderness Festival and David Byrne’s Meltdown Festival.
BENJAMIN CLEMENTINE – U.S. TOUR DATES
October 14 – Wolftrap – Washington DC
October 15 – Highline Ballroom – New York, NY
October 19 – Lincoln Hall – Chicago, IL
October 20 – Troubadour – Los Angeles, CA
October 22 – Bimbo’s – San Francisco, CA
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Benjamin Clementine has packed a lot into his 26 years: heartbreak, homelessness, and reinvention all came before reaching cult status in Paris and eventually receiving the “Best New Act” honors at 2015’s Les Victoires de la Musique, the French equivalent of the GRAMMY Awards. Raised in a strict religious household in the tough Edmonton section of London, Benjamin started to teach himself the keyboard at age 11, stumbling upon classical rather than contemporary pop; a sparse piano solo by Erik Satie in particular transformed the way he played. At 16 years old, in a rare moment of permitted TV watching, he caught New York avant-gardists Antony and the Johnsons performing the disarmingly naked “Hope There’s Someone” on the BBC. “I was confused, scared…it was another world,” says Clementine. “When it finished, I went back upstairs to my piano and started playing chords.”
Inspired by figures like Leonard Cohen—and with no emotional or employment ties to keep him in London—Benjamin left for Paris at age 20; sleeping rough, working in kitchens and busking out of economic necessity. First in the corridors of the Place de Clichy station and then on the metro, he built his voice and refined his craft as he made enough money to move first to a hostel and then into a room of his own. Having eventually returned to his hometown of London, word spread from across the continent to the point where Benjamin Clementine’s U.K. live debut took place on national TV when he played two songs on Later…With Jools Holland. At 6 ft 3—dressed in his now-trademark overcoat and bare-feet—Clementine cut an extraordinary, puzzling presence, causing a small storm on Twitter, and Paul McCartney amongst the first to congratulate Clementine on an “amazing” performance.
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