Review: BEN PLATT AND BRANDY CLARK at Mershon Auditorium

Ben Platt played the neurotic title character in DEAR EVAN HANSEN and the lovable, yet socially awkward Benji Applebaum in “Pitch Perfect” and “Pitch Perfect 2.”

During Platt’s concert at the Mershon Auditorium July 2, those characteristics were only a small part of his on-stage persona.

“If you came to this show, you are either gay or anxious,” Platt addressed the nearly full 2,477-seat theatre. “Or perhaps, both. If you’re thinking, ‘I’m not in one of those groups,’ perhaps you need to look in the mirror.”

For a nearly two hour, 16-song set, Platt straddled that line between his insecurities and his love for his fiancé Noah Galvin. At times, he seemed to nervously speed read his way through preambles to songs from his three albums.

At other times, Platt seemed completely comfortable as he vogued his way through the song, “All-American Queen” from his 2024 Honeymind album and belted his way through Liza Minelli standard, “Maybe This Time,” from the movie “Cabaret” in a feathery nightgown.

And yet, Platt found a way to make every audience member feel valued, accepted, and welcomed whether one was a member of the insecure group or the queer one.

The GET member (a Grammy, Emmy, and Tony award winner) has a way of taking his unique life experiences and applying them to a larger audience.

Before playing the song, “Andrew” (also from Honeymind”), Platt told the crowd, “Regardless of your sexuality, for any human who walks the earth, a rite of passage is having some sort of experience with unrequited love.

“This gentleman that I created is sort of an amalgam of all the different experiences I had growing up.” Platt paused, and then added with a smile, “If your name is Andrew, I apologize.”

Perhaps intentionally ironic, Platt then followed “Andrew” with his “it’s not you, it’s me” breakup song “I Wanna Love You, But I Don’t” from the 2021 album “Reverie.”

The song is about being on the giving end of unrequited love.

“One of the hardest types of breakups is when there’s nothing really wrong with the person that you can point to,” he explained. “(There’s) nothing that has been perpetrated against you. You just realize this is not your person.”

Platt had a three-week residency at the historic Palace Theatre in New York City prior to coming to Columbus. Although many of the players were different than the string of shows, the singer put together a tight backing band of vocalists Shaunice Alexander and Allen Rene Louis, bassist Trevor Brown, drummer Josh Bailey, guitarists Ner Felder and Franklin Rankin, and Rashad McPherson.

The band rolled through seven songs from the new release “Honeymind” as well as four songs from Sing To Me Instead (2019 and two from Reverie.

Although the show was missing any songs from his outstanding performances in DEAR EVAN HANSEN and PARADE and even THE BOOK OF MORMON (where he replaced Cody Jamison Strand as the socially awkward Elder Cunningham). Platt however did great covers of James Taylor’s “Your Smiling Face” and Joni Mitchell’s “River.”

One of the highlights of the show was his debut with Brandy Clark, the concert’s opening act, on “Treehouse.” The two originally duetted on the song for “Honeymind.”

Clark’s 40-minute, eight-song set was a vast contrast to Platt’s. She had a one person back-up band, multiple instrumentalist Ellen Angelico, compared to Platt’s ensemble and was a little more countrified than Platt’s pop.

However, Clark, who has written for Sheryl Crow, Miranda Lambert, Reba McEntire, Darius Rucker, and LeAnn Rimes, cracked the audience up before launching into Kacey Musgrave’s “Follow Your Arrow.”

“I was dejected at the time she recorded it because it bumped another song of mine off her record, which was supposed to be a radio single,” she said. “The silver lining was the song ended up winning the CMA song of the year. It was the lowest charting single to ever win the CMA song of the year. They even changed the rules after that because they didn’t like the fact it won.”

Clark also received some notoriety as the creator of the 2022 musical SHUCKED! which was nominated for eight Tony Awards in 2023. Alex Newell, who won the best featured actor in a musical, was SHUCKED’s only winner.

Clark simplified the entire show into a five minute SHUCKED! medley.

After receiving a huge audience response upon introducing the musical, Clark joked, “Ohio’s all about corn. You guys are going to understand this.

“This is one of the few parts where Ben Platt and I  intersect,” she said. “I love to say we both had a show on Broadway at the same time.”

It was not the only similarity between the two. Clark closed her eight-song set with “Dear Insecurity,” a song about the self-doubt that creeps behind every decision we make: “I'll never find a way to get you gone/Wish I could find a way to know you're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong/You're careless, and you're cruel, and, oh, you're mindless/Maybe you could try a little kindness Instead of hurtin' me?”

Somehow it just seems to be, in retrospect, the perfect lead in for a Ben Platt concert.