Ben Lee Live – Awake Is The New Sleep 20th Anniversary in Brisbane

Ben Lee @ Princess Theatre, Brisbane — 3 October 2025

Live Review by Ben Preece

Photos by Craig Patch-Taylor

2005 feels an age ago, yet Awake Is The New Sleep remains as relevant as ever — as does Ben Lee himself. The record marked one of the ageless artist’s commercial purple patches, a soundtrack to optimism that still rings out with purpose twenty years on. It’s an album so special it managed a second wind during lockdown — within its walls, the LP holds one song promoting unity (‘We’re All In This Together’) and one for the offending virus itself (‘Catch My Disease’) — finding renewed resonance in isolation.

Ben Lee Live

So here we are again, big and small, short and tall, queuing for the guy who’s arguably done more for Australian music in recent times than most — not just through songs, but through sheer awakeness and a fearless commentary calling it how it is. His worldview, his clarity, and his refusal to dull the edges have made him something of a national mirror, and somewhat of a supportive statesman for younger artists. He was there once, and he doesn’t forget.

The evening opened in perfect symmetry with the album’s spirit — gentle, glowing, and utterly unhurried. Sally Seltmann, seated at her keyboard and bathed in pink light, set the tone with a set that felt both tender and timeless. Her songs from 2022’s Early Moon and beyond floated through the theatre, soft and fragrant, like the promise of something quietly profound. There’s always been a kindredness between her and Lee — the way both can turn small moments into emotional avalanches — and the pairing felt less like support and more like a prelude.

There’s a lot of love in the room when Lee finally takes the stage. It’s a sea of flowers and grins, the crowd already softened and ready. He leans into the nostalgia without irony, smiling as he confesses he’d never thought to do a nostalgic album tour. “...but you get older,” he says almost apologetically, “and you realise it’s nice to do things for other people.”

From there, Awake Is The New Sleep unfurls exactly as it should — front to back, story to story, no tricks, no pretence. Each song is framed by memories and self-deprecating jokes: the worry his manager once had over the lyric “they don’t play me on the radio, and that’s the way I like it”; the nod to Amyl and the Sniffers, Ninajirachi and Thelma Plum; the quip about getting older but “still horny enough to write love songs.” The stories are perfect for this nostalgic format, with Lee painting 2005 in vivid colour — even if filtered through his own singular lens. The Princess Theatre eats it all up, right from his outstretched hand.

‘Gamble Everything for Love’ is still arguably the best song on the record, and it appears early, second in the set due to album sequencing. By the time ‘Catch My Disease’ arrives — barely four songs in — the crowd is already a choir. A bemused Lee grins as he strums, half-mock exasperated that his biggest hit comes too early in the night. “Usually this is the closer!” he laughs, before swapping out the early-2000s name-drops for modern ones and revelling in the absurdity of it all. It’s moments like these that remind you what made him such a beloved figure in the first place — his ability to treat pop success like a shared joke rather than a pedestal.

It flips to the “horny part of the album” after that, and the mood deepens. His most “homo-erotic song ever,” ‘Apple Candy’, shimmers with yearning, Lee explaining how he was “channelling Peter Gabriel” when he wrote it — “the world’s horniest bald man,” he adds, eyes twinkling. Laughter rolls through the theatre, but underneath it is something clearly more poignant. Another of this writer’s favourites, ‘Ache for You’, is given the extended treatment as Lee throws the mic over to the audience for the hooky backing vocals — one of the single finest moments on the entire record. The song is delivered with the same achingly beautiful sentiment that seemed to spur the original.

It actually hurts.

The night isn’t just about nostalgia; it ebbs and flows into gratitude, growth, and the strange endurance of joy. And it all feels present in this room tonight.

A string of excellence — ‘Into the Dark’, ‘No Right Angles’, ‘Close I’ve Come’ — come and go, and it becomes futile naming highlights from such a flawless album. By the time ‘We’re All in This Together’ finally appears, it hits differently. Lee admits the song’s meaning shifts with time — sometimes too sweet, sometimes too needed — but right now, in a fractured world, it feels a bit like medicine. The sentiment isn’t lost on this audience; they dance, sway, and sing, hands united as if rediscovering something long lost in each other.

And then comes ‘Light’. A slow-burn ten minutes of unfiltered bliss — guitar, groove, and a saxophone solo that seems to materialise from thin air. Each city on the tour, Lee explains, has its own local sax player; Brisbane’s “Ben the saxophonist” jams like he’s been in the band for years. The two Bens lock eyes and grin as the extended solo unfurls gloriously. What can follow such a sonic wonder but a solo Lee with acoustic guitar playing ‘I’m Willing’? It’s a glance back paired with words of intention, a perfect album closer — especially with the benefit of knowing what happens next in Lee’s life.

The album is finished, but Lee has put together one hell of an encore. Appearing solo as the main set closes, he plays his latest single ‘The Fall of America’ (hear it if you haven’t) followed by Modest Mouse’s ‘Float On’ — “a song we used to go out and dance to while recording the album” — with the full band back on stage. And then, the evening’s truest display of Lee’s commitment to long-term friendship occurs as he invites Sally Seltmann back on stage to give her her flowers for Feist’s ‘1-2-3-4’, “the song she wrote that no one knows she wrote.” It’s pure joy materialised in song.

By the end, the set closes with ‘Cigarettes Will Kill You’, and it feels less like a gig and more like a reunion. Two decades on, Awake Is The New Sleep still radiates with nostalgia and love — its quiet message a wonderful life philosophy: stay open, stay awake, stay kind, stay weird. And Lee, ever the optimist, suited up and surrounded by flowers, reminds us that happiness isn’t naïve — it’s a practice.

Thanks Ben. You leave us again with our hearts full and our souls nourished.

BEN LEE LIVE — Full Gallery by Craig Patch-Taylor