Review: Ben Lee and Georgia Maq at The Rechabite

Ben Lee and Georgia Maq at The Rechabite
Tuesday, September 29, 2026 

Touring under the moniker “The Two Most Annoying People You Love,” fast friends and latter-day Australian icons Ben Lee and Georgia Maq landed at The Rechabite on Tuesday night with a joint concert far more akin to a concept piece cooked up between besties than anything buffed, polished or standardised.  With neither artist having a current album to promote, and the only merch being a rather surrealist fanzine with more than a passing resemblance to UWA’s Prosh, the evening as a whole came across as if a secret, behind-the-scenes deep cut of unrehearsed banter and song swaps, along with an adorable sense of care and respect fully shared between the two.

The setting was minimal to the point of spartan, with barely more than microphones and guitar stands apparent as Lee and Maq made their way out from the most unassuming side door of the venue. Maq announced that it was her first time back in Western Australia since before the pandemic, whilst Lee had been a far more regular visitor, and that she had been furiously reading Pet Sematary backstage but hadn’t quite yet finished it off—although she hoped she would complete the book during intermission. It was very much a night for such unconnected and unfiltered thoughts.

Lee stated that tonight’s drinking game was to take a shot every time Maq mentioned that she had relocated to the United States. Anyone playing that game would easily have been hammered within the hour, as much of Maq’s portion of the setlist either celebrated or lamented that move. Tropical Lush Ice and The LA River mentioned both California and specifically Los Angeles in a beautiful, bittersweet, melancholic way, whilst the unreleased, bleakly mournful Cheap Sedan road-tripped coast to coast, a dark pilgrimage in search of absolution.

Maq went to almost hilarious pains in attempts to convince the audience all these sad songs full of gloriously overwhelming emotions were completely and utterly made up and that she was indeed the effortlessly cool one on stage tonight.

Lee’s contribution to this sense of Americana tonight was his ode to the music industry, Land of Criminals. He asked how the audience was doing and after a polite smattering of applause, noted that response gave the warmth of ‘intimate and cosy,’ rather than the potentially equally valid ‘decidedly half-arsed.’ However, Lee was unfair to a degree there, as it was not the night for raucous crowd noise, the performance played out as an unplugged set with the fans intent on capturing every single lyric and all the musical notes.

Lee’s biggest hits played tonight, Cigarettes Will Kill You and the ubiquitous Catch My Disease were reconfigured spectacularly as acoustic duets; the former featured Maq on banjo, giving the track the faintest blush of bluegrass as it ached across the decades. With Lee the proud owner of two runner-up positions in the triple j Hottest 100, Maq also did her best to convince her tourmate that second was the new number one.

Maq also related the moment as a pre-teen at a family wedding when she tried beer and Coca-Cola, and that was not the way she liked it, as she looked daggers at Lee across the stage. This was a reminder of the generation gap between the two, and they leant into that fact with full intent, recognising the daggy dad/surly teenager dynamic they had all but mastered to this point in their friendship.

On first impression, an unlikely pairing of talents, Lee quite relaxed into his elder statesman era with Maq seemingly anxious and too self-deprecating, their musical instincts and sensibilities just ever so slightly askew. It was not too long into the evening that those quibbles melted away, as their voices and personalities entwined with each other spectacularly. The authenticity they brought to stage as individuals increased near enough exponentially as a pair, their friendship blazing through which led to a very special night that assuredly and absolutely became more than the sum of its parts.

PAUL MEEK