Ben Burnley and Lacey Sturm Get Unplugged and Personal at the House of Blues

The 2000's rock scene was an incredibly crowded and competitive scene. In the decade prior, we'd made the painful transition from hair metal to grunge, and now we were leaving grunge in the rearview in favor of the absolute soup that was post-grunge/nu-metal/alt-metal. It was a very white and very male time, even for rock music. We were all really angry and we didn't know why.

But this was the early 2000's and Napster/iTunes hadn't quite killed off physical media sales. There was still a shit ton of money to be made (usually not by the artists directly) in music, so almost any band that could play in drop-D tuning and/or stuff a DJ and maybe a few bars of rap into the pre chorus would get some amount of airplay. But as you can imagine, the misses far outweighed the hits. For every Incubus, there were a handful of Trust Companies and Taproots and Colds. No slight against those bands, all of whom I listened to regularly during that time and still do from time to time, but that kind of sound has had its time and that time's peak is in the rearview. For every Deftones, you would have a bucket full of Trapts ready to be thrown down a well. And yes, that is a slight against Trapt that I did go very out of my way to make because they're a trash band with a trash singer, something I don't say lightly or without receipts.

One of the best ways for bands of the era to rise above their peers (or in the cast of Trapt, above the ones stuck to the bottom of someone's boot somewhere) was to have a voice for a singer. Not just any voice, but a voice. One of those voices that cuts straight through even the loudest most distorted guitars, even the seven-string variety that were the fad of the time. Evanescence had a voice in Amy Lee, where you could tell within seconds of hearing it who you were listening to. Chino Moreno of Deftones is a voice. Chester Bennington and Serj Tankian as well.

Ben Burnley of Breaking Benjamin always had that kind of voice as well. Seemingly engineered in a lab to have the perfect post-grunge voice, he's a master of everything from the angst-driven whisper to the scream/sing chorus to literally growling like a bear. Quiet. Loud. Happy. Sad. Murderous. Burnley's voice could do it all.

And this served the band well over time, considering various lineup changes over the decades leaves Burnley the only remaining original member of the band. Considering he was the primary vocalist, guitarist, and songwriter for Breaking Benjamin, that actually counts as consistency. And the last full-length album we got from the band (2020's Aurora) put Burnley front and center more than usual - it was an album full of alternate versions of their own songs that were stripped down to acoustics, some with guests.

One such guest joining the band on 'Dear Agony' was Flyleaf frontwoman Lacy Sturm. Providing a lighter, higher-end contrast to Burnley's lower register turned out to be the perfect mix, as the track became the album's most popular. Sturm's no slouch herself in the voice department, with her solo debut (2016's Life Screams) being the first ever album by a female vocalist to top the Billboard Hard Rock Album chart.

Bottling up that lightning and putting it on the road. Burnley and Strum hit the road along with Josh Strum (no relation) (I'm kidding, of course there's a relation) to cover both Breaking Benjamin and Flyleaf songs in the same format as Aurora.

I really don't want to start out on a bummer note, but I feel like it's the only complaint I had about the entire evening: for a night billed as a Ben Burnley acoustic performance, I would expect for Ben to play at least a little guitar during the evening, especially since he's such a phenomenal guitarist in Breaking Benjamin. But whether it was to really focus on his vocal performance or just to make things as informal as possible, Ben stuck strictly to vocals on the evening. A disappointment, but not a roadblock for enjoying the evening by any means.

And when I say that the entire evening was informal, that's a bit of an understatement. Never one to shy away from crowd banter during full Breaking Benjamin shows, it isn't out of the ordinary for Burnley to participate in some back-and-forth during performances. But with barely any barrier whatsoever between performer and audience, things got really casual really quickly. From discussing how certain songs were written to swapping war stories from former tours, the entire night had the feel of a bunch of friends just sitting around in a basement jamming. This was amplified even more by the fact that mixed between some of the bands' greatest hits (fan favorites like 'So Cold' and 'The Diary of Jane' from the Breaking Benjamin side and 'Fully Alive' and 'All Around Me' for the Flyleaf fans) was a healthy number of cover songs. From all-time classic's like Metallica's 'Nothing Else Matters' to underrated rippers from the 90's like Silverchair's 'Tomorrow', to unexpected gems like Eric Clapton's 'Tears in Heaven', the performances felt so laid back and natural that I'd swear they were making it all up as they went along if they didn't have setlists taped all over the stage.

So can you stage an entire successful tour around a single duet? Ben Burnley and Lacey Sturm just proved that you absolutely can (and maybe more artists should), as long as you take whatever it is that made that duet pop off an recreate it on the road. We could have easily had a full Breaking Benjamin/Flyleaf tour and I'm sure that tour would have been awesome. But it wouldn't have left the impression that this stripped-down intimate setting did on the capacity crowd at the House of Blues last week. And at a time when it seems like every band you've ever heard of is back for multiple dates across the US celebrating that one album you kinda remember from college, that kind of special spark stands out way more than ever before.

Ben Burnley feat. Lacey and Josh Sturm Setlist - House of Blues, Chicago 7.25.25

So Cold
Fully Alive
Dear Agony
Sorrow
Tomorrow
Breath
I'm So Sick
The Diary of Jane
All Around Me
Ashes of Eden
So I Thought
Cry Little Sister
Arise
Tears in Heaven
Landslide
Iris
All Apologies
Awaken
Nothing Else Matters