If you came to Ben Howard’s I Forget Where We Were 10th Anniversary Retrospective Tour expecting a note-for-note rendition of the British singer-songwriter’s most widely lauded album, you might be disappointed: this retrospective is about meeting the album in the present moment. On an October evening in London, each of Howard’s songs unfolded like an ephemeral memory—slightly altered, viewed through a distorted lens, existing in that liminal space between retrospection and introspection, between the familiar and the yet-to-be-discovered.
Under the dim lights of the Apollo in Hammersmith, Howard became an engineer of ambience. Flashing, strobe-like shadows emanated from the stage as he began the concert with End Of The Affair. The longest song on the album, with its instrumental introduction, allowed the crowd to settle from their excitement. Notably, on the record, the song oscillates between tension and stillness, conveyed through Howard’s raw vocals and signature haunting arrangements on the acoustic guitar. In the live rendition, this oscillation was even more prevalent. The smooth, arching acoustic melodies, reverberant vocals, and suspended silences filled the room and set the stage for the sonic and visual journey ahead.
Howard’s performance took a sharp turn from catharsis to a more buoyant optimism with She Treats Me Well, a track that showcases his lyrical vulnerability against a complex musical landscape. The juxtaposition between the song’s hopeful harmonies and intricate, layered guitar work reflects Howard’s remarkable command of both emotionality and technical skill. His fingerstyle picking, use of open-string resonance, and syncopated rhythmic patterns reveal his uncanny ability to channel depth and poignancy.
She Treats Me Well feels like a return to the folky textures of the album Old Pine—yet with a richer, more sophisticated understanding of emotional and musical complexity. Howard’s growth as an artist becomes palpable in the song’s rendition, evident in the noticeable ease in how he engages with these classics. Leaning into a sound that’s both familiar and newly profound, the musical stylings here have a fluidity and an effortless spontaneity, each chord progression and rhythmic shift resonating with the wisdom of a decade-long journey since the album’s release.
As Small Things begins, a surge of excitement ripples through the crowd, though Howard wryly remarks beforehand that it’s a “miserable song,” inviting the audience into a shared space of knowing melancholy. Howard’s fans, after all, are drawn to the singer-songwriter’s signature blend of existential melancholy and atmospheric production. But as the song unfolds and reaches its instrumental breakdown, a notable shift emerges, steering us toward Howard’s evolved sound—fragmented, darker, and deeply resonant with the themes of his later albums, Noonday Dream, Collections from the Whiteout, and Is It?, whose musical stylings veer into distinctly psychedelic and sometimes ethereal territory.
The stage projections of the tour align with this newer aesthetic and sonic disposition as well: intricate visuals of flora and fauna cast on a towering tree structure recur throughout the production, nodding to Howard’s folk roots but feeling distorted here—much like the layered complexity and psychedelia of his current soundscapes. This blend of organic imagery, materiality, and surreal distortion evokes the ambiance of his recent albums, where familiarity melds with the sublime unfamiliar.
Time is Dancing takes its turn, infused with an additional verse in this live rendition—a choice that amplifies Howard’s continued stylistic evolution and reflection on what some consider his most seminal album. By intertwining his earlier, folk-tinged work with his darker, more abstract compositions, Howard crafts an experience that is both nostalgic and elusive. It’s a journey of recalling what feels like a half-remembered memory, as if the song itself exists in that space between recognition and rediscovery; a holistic approach to his music that invites the audience to join Howard in a state of liminality as he mines the sonic and aesthetic refractions of his catalogue.
The seventh song of the night, Quiet Me Down, deepens the concert’s atmosphere of introspection and retrospection. It’s one of six new tracks added to the deluxe version of I Forget Where We Were, written during that era but left out of the final cut. Howard’s signature fingerstyle acoustic guitar leads the melody, evoking the folk-inspired sound that first launched his career. Yet, the track feels refreshed by an understated, mildly dissonant ambiguity, blending nostalgia with a newfound restraint. The hypnotic repetition in the guitar’s rhythm shapes an almost trance-like atmosphere, pulling the audience into its dreamlike cadence.
Oats in the Water follows, casting a darker, brooding tone. Its familiar, foreboding chords hang in the air with a powerful sense of longing—both reachable and just out of grasp, embodying Howard’s signature skill at merging intimacy with a sense of distance.
For Evergreen, Howard brings back Billie Marten, the night’s opening act, whose delicate, airy vocals left a lasting impression. Howard’s collaborative spirit shines through; having attended past Is It? shows, it’s evident he values the craft of live performance, often inviting his opening act back on stage to share the spotlight. This generosity extends not just to the artists around him but to his audience, creating an experience that feels deeply communal.
As the show nears its end, the album’s titular track emerges before the encore. Its dissonant tonalities, intricate fingerpicking, and ambient layers weave together a profound shared sense of nostalgia. The song’s breakdown builds in swells and crescendos, each rise and fall expanding through the venue, holding the crowd in suspended breath, each moment stretching toward the next elusive note.
The songs throughout the night feel like fragments of memory—both blurred and shapeless—yet Howard has woven his newer, introspective style into these beloved classics, merging past and present so seamlessly it’s nearly impossible to tell where one fades and the other begins. The result is a haunting balance of the familiar and the unknown, a sound that feels both comforting and slightly out of reach, resonant within the context of Howard’s overall artistic ethos. It’s a sense of longing, displacement, and yearning paired with deep nostalgia and existential wonder, rooted in both past and present.
The show’s distinct retrospective sensibility leaves the audience yearning for more, searching to anchor the memory in something tangible. Yet, if you return home and decide to play the record, that experience remains just out of reach. Each song becomes an ephemeral fragment, fleeting and unrepeatable, existing only in the shared atmosphere of the night. As Howard once remarked during his NPR Tiny Desk, “a song is a gesture rather than a permanent thing”—a sentiment that encapsulates the essence of the evening’s performance.
This retrospective wasn’t just a flashback—it was a testament to Howard’s instinct for reinvention. A decade on, I Forget Where We Were isn’t just a memory; it’s a living, breathing experience reflective of the evolution of an artist’s style.
Images courtesy of Jay Davison – @jaydavison_
Jenny is the editor-at-large at Liminul.
Ex-Tumblr girl, flâneuse, art history grad, and staunch defender of the Oxford comma.