A J-School graduate swung his guitar down and smashed it onstage at Lollapalooza.
During his afternoon set at the Chicago festival, Benjamin Booker realized the event marked a transition in his musical career.
By the end of his set, a backup guitar his parents bought him laid in pieces. Members of the crowd flocked to claim the destroyed memorabilia.
“I was walking around (Lollapalooza) afterward, and there were people with pieces of my childhood guitar,” Booker said.
After touring numerous festivals, opening for The White Stripes’ frontman, Jack White, and performing on TV shows such as “Late Night With David Letterman,” Booker returns to Gainesville today for a headlining show at the High Dive
Surprisingly, this will be Booker’s first live performance in front of a Gainesville crowd.
“When I lived in Gainesville, I didn’t play any shows,” Booker admitted. “I wrote my first four or five songs while I was out in my yard or around town.”
The past year marks an extraordinary jump for Booker, going from an unsigned performer to climbing the sales charts with his debut LP on ATO Records. His raw, gritty sound fuses traditional blues with hard rock ‘n’ roll.
Booker grew up in Tampa and attended the International Baccalaureate program at Hillsborough High School.
“At Hillsborough, I had a group of friends, and we were all into the same kind of music, “ he said. “We’d enjoy watching local shows all the time.”
After high school, he came to UF as a journalism major and worked for Reitz Union Board Entertainment and wrote for the Alligator.
“I got to meet bands a lot,” he said. “(RUB) brought Deerhunter, and that was huge for me. I was freaking out.”
After graduating, Booker moved to New Orleans and played acoustic shows.
“We were playing three shows a week in New Orleans — maybe because we loved it so much,” he said. “We ended up spending so much time on (our music), and it all worked out.”
Booker plans to play his Gainesville debut like his festival performances, but he wants to keep the performance original, too.
“You feel more pressured to keep it energetic for a festival set,” he said. “We try to keep it fresh from show to show. If a song feels wrong, we’ll change it up a bit.”
[A version of this story ran on page 10 on 10/30/2014]
