Music Review: Have you met Radnor & Lee

I despise blogs or articles that start this way with such a cliched or cringeworthy sentence but given how much of a How I Met Your Mother fan I am I couldn't resist (and for those wondering, I'm definitely a Ted, well mostly Ted, with bits of Robin thrown in for good measure but I'm mostly Ted) starting that way.

Anyway, if you haven't heard the news already, and you'd have had to have been living under a rock, the actor Josh Radnor who played the lead character Ted has teamed up with Sydney born folk singer, Ben Lee, who has been recording for the last 25 years, since he was 14 years old, for what is a brilliant collaboration called Radnor & Lee.

There are no prizes for guessing how that name came about.

The duo announced a tour of Australia's east coast next month and they'll be playing a series of small intimate gigs in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane with the following dates and venues:

Sydney - Metro Theatre 20th May 2018
Melbourne - Athenaeum Theatre 19th May 2018
Brisbane - The Triffid 17th May 2018

These are all small venues with a capacity of no more than 1100, with Sydney's Metro Theatre holding the biggest audience and Melbourne's with 1000, meanwhile Brisbane's is even more intimate with a capacity of only 700.

Unlike stadium gigs these will be extremely intimate and personal. It will be very much like seeing a local band play at your local pub, and in a weird kind of way that's exactly what it will be.

Now, you may have seen Josh Radnor interviewed saying that he wants people to move on from Ted (sorry Josh, that's not gonna happen, you did such a great job that we're always going to see a part of Ted in you because for nine years, you really were Ted Mosby) and focus on his new artistic endeavours. He had also said in multiple interviews that he was aware some people would go simply because he was in HIMYM but that there'd be a cool transition where people became genuine fans of Radnor and Lee.

Well, I'm pretty open to music from all artists, in the weekend I saw Melissa Etheridge who I hadn't been a fan of at a concert that Sheryl Crow was also playing at (that show was amazing btw and even though I went for Sheryl Crow, I was impressed by Melissa Etheridge)

So with that in mind I thought I might as well familiarise myself with the music of Radnor and Lee so I bought the debut album.

The album opens with Be like the Being, a song with led vocals by Josh Radnor that asks philosophical questions. Despite being a supposedly serious song, this track is extremely positive and uplifting. It's got undertones of country and an Irish jig. It really sets the tone for the rest of the album.

The next track, Doorstep, carries on with the upbeat melodies and the storytelling. It is very much a reflection song about where you've been and where you're going. Only actors (which both Radnor and Lee are) could write an album that really tells a story.

Another standout track is It's Yours Once You Give It Away, which is about letting go of possessions and not being materialistic; and that you get true freedom when you let go of certain notions and ideas that you've held.

The next tune is Still Though We Should Dance and it is really a continuation of the first track of the album. It's another reflection song, and songs like this can either be really sad or really happy. It depends on the composition. This is one particular composition that will have you dancing as the title of the song itself says.

Now, I could run you through the rest of the songs on the album but honestly I don't want to do that. I want you to actually buy this album and hear how great it is for yourself.

I can't speak for other people given the size of the gigs but I really hope that Radnor and Lee are around for quite some time and those of us lucky enough to be going to the early gigs will be able to tell the story in 10 - 20 years time of how we were there when the band first started up.

Now that would be a cool story.

The album's only available online and I give it a 4/5. In this particular case it loses points because it's only available online and it only has 11 tracks. I would like more, but there have been hints of a second album in the works.

Check it out for yourself and buy tickets when they go on sale tomorrow at 10am AEST.