![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Last night's Ben Folds show was yet another contender for the Best Show I've Ever Been To. I ended up meeting Dan and Meg at 6pm at the Central T because the tickets said the show started at 7. We got there early and found a spot where Meg could stand on a stair (she's short) and Dan could stand on the floor next to her (he's tall). We ran into Amy and Tom, too. The Avalon was bigger than I expected it to be.
Opening act went on right at 7, from what I can tell. It was a guy named Corn Mo, with an accordion. He has long crazy blonde hair and is crazy himself. He was totally awesome. He sang a song about making out at the mall and about not being Gary Bussey, and his last song was one that he wrote when he got hired to play at a kid's bar mitzvah. It was called Havana Gila Monster (I know I misspelled Havana Gila, but I figure you know what I meant since it was for a bar mitzvah). Apparently the kid's mom told him to rock out or something, and he's from Dallas so he wrote this hair metally song about how the havana gila monster is going to get you. They even did the lighting all awesome. It was one of the coolest things I ever saw. I bought his cd, and Tom bought the dvd of his public access tv show.
Around 8:20, Ben Folds came on. I'm going to try to remember the set list to the best of my ability, but I know I'm not going to get everything in order. That said, they (it was Ben and two guys, a drummer and a guitarist) started off with "In Between Days", the Cure cover that's on the Speed Graphic ep and the Songs for Goldfish ep. He played "there's always someone cooler than you" (off the SUNNY 16 ep), and "zak and sara" (off Rockin' the Suburbs). A few songs in he started playing things off the new album, starting with "Jesusland." It's kind of a sarcastic song about America. Just as he was starting the fourth verse, his mic emitted a really high-pitched feedback noise. Ben paused, said "huh", and then tried to start the verse again. Same evil noise. The third time it was worse. The whole band stopped. Then Ben moved down a few octaves on the piano and started playing a little oompah-ey song and singing "Oh Lord, it's just a pop song..." and added some lines about please don't smite me or something, and the other guys joined in and played this cute little ditty. A few minutes later they stopped, and Ben said, "Hey, we were in the middle of a song!" and they went back into "Jesusland", and it sounded fine that time.
After that he played "Bastard" off the new album, and "Don't Change Your Plans" from Reinhold Messner. And "Still Fighting It" from Rockin' the Suburbs, followed by "all you can eat" from SUNNY 16. Then the other guys headed offstage, leaving Ben alone with his piano, and he played a bunch of old things. The first part of the show rocked big time, but the second part was more fun, I think. I knew all the words to everything and so did the majority of the people in the audience. It was a moment that proved the theory that whenever anyone sings along to a Ben Folds album, that person will sing the backup part instead of the main vocals--with just Ben playing piano, you could hear the entire crowd singing along, and it was all the backup vocals and harmonies. Totally awesome. He played "Where's Summer B?" from the BFF self-titled, and then he started testing us. He played the opening chords of "Underground" to see who would recognize it and start singing, and he just mouthed the words to us. After that he played "Army", and divided the room in half so we could sing the two "ba ba ba" parts. He was obviously having a lot of fun conducting us. It was awesome. He played "Brick", and "Jackson Cannery". After a while the other guys came back on and they played some more things from the new album, but I'm not as familiar with that yet so I can't tell you the song titles. I know they played "Trusted". Can't remember what the last song was because the encores were so awesome. They had a limited amount of time--Jorn theorizes that the Avalon was having dancing or something else going on later that night--so Ben felt a little rushed, but he was clearly excited. He got us to sing again, and taught us three-part harmonies for a section of "Not the Same". When he got us to do it acceptably, they started playing the song, and he cued us when we were supposed to come in. It sounded really good. At the end of the song Ben jumped up on a chair or the piano or something and started conducting us, having one half of the room singing the harmonies in short rhythmic bursts while the other half sang long notes. Dan said it sounded like the voice sounds on a keyboard. So fun. The last song they did was "One Angry Dwarf", and because they didn't have much time left they played it a bunch faster than it was in the original recording, but that just made it rock harder.
So there you go. An incredibly awesome show. Ben can make you feel like it's just you and him and 20 other people hanging out, instead of him playing to a crowd of several hundred. I definitely feel more charitably inclined towards the new cd, too. And he played a really good, strong set--almost two hours--and I was still home by 11pm (plenty of time to go to IHOP with Jorn!). Why can't all concerts be like that??
::edit:: Holy crap, I forgot to mention one of the coolest things about the show! They played "Bitches Ain't Shit", which is a Dr. Dre song. I had heard it before because it was up on itunes and Jorn had downloaded it for me. It's also the B-side on the "Landed" single (they played "Landed" too, by the way, which I also forgot to mention). But "Bitches Ain't Shit" was totally awesome and hilarious. You could tell that a lot of people in the crowd hadn't heard it before, because they were laughing so hard, but by the end we were all singing along with "bitches can't hang with the streets" and it was really pretty. Gah. Just one more thing that made a totally great show even more totally great.
Opening act went on right at 7, from what I can tell. It was a guy named Corn Mo, with an accordion. He has long crazy blonde hair and is crazy himself. He was totally awesome. He sang a song about making out at the mall and about not being Gary Bussey, and his last song was one that he wrote when he got hired to play at a kid's bar mitzvah. It was called Havana Gila Monster (I know I misspelled Havana Gila, but I figure you know what I meant since it was for a bar mitzvah). Apparently the kid's mom told him to rock out or something, and he's from Dallas so he wrote this hair metally song about how the havana gila monster is going to get you. They even did the lighting all awesome. It was one of the coolest things I ever saw. I bought his cd, and Tom bought the dvd of his public access tv show.
Around 8:20, Ben Folds came on. I'm going to try to remember the set list to the best of my ability, but I know I'm not going to get everything in order. That said, they (it was Ben and two guys, a drummer and a guitarist) started off with "In Between Days", the Cure cover that's on the Speed Graphic ep and the Songs for Goldfish ep. He played "there's always someone cooler than you" (off the SUNNY 16 ep), and "zak and sara" (off Rockin' the Suburbs). A few songs in he started playing things off the new album, starting with "Jesusland." It's kind of a sarcastic song about America. Just as he was starting the fourth verse, his mic emitted a really high-pitched feedback noise. Ben paused, said "huh", and then tried to start the verse again. Same evil noise. The third time it was worse. The whole band stopped. Then Ben moved down a few octaves on the piano and started playing a little oompah-ey song and singing "Oh Lord, it's just a pop song..." and added some lines about please don't smite me or something, and the other guys joined in and played this cute little ditty. A few minutes later they stopped, and Ben said, "Hey, we were in the middle of a song!" and they went back into "Jesusland", and it sounded fine that time.
After that he played "Bastard" off the new album, and "Don't Change Your Plans" from Reinhold Messner. And "Still Fighting It" from Rockin' the Suburbs, followed by "all you can eat" from SUNNY 16. Then the other guys headed offstage, leaving Ben alone with his piano, and he played a bunch of old things. The first part of the show rocked big time, but the second part was more fun, I think. I knew all the words to everything and so did the majority of the people in the audience. It was a moment that proved the theory that whenever anyone sings along to a Ben Folds album, that person will sing the backup part instead of the main vocals--with just Ben playing piano, you could hear the entire crowd singing along, and it was all the backup vocals and harmonies. Totally awesome. He played "Where's Summer B?" from the BFF self-titled, and then he started testing us. He played the opening chords of "Underground" to see who would recognize it and start singing, and he just mouthed the words to us. After that he played "Army", and divided the room in half so we could sing the two "ba ba ba" parts. He was obviously having a lot of fun conducting us. It was awesome. He played "Brick", and "Jackson Cannery". After a while the other guys came back on and they played some more things from the new album, but I'm not as familiar with that yet so I can't tell you the song titles. I know they played "Trusted". Can't remember what the last song was because the encores were so awesome. They had a limited amount of time--Jorn theorizes that the Avalon was having dancing or something else going on later that night--so Ben felt a little rushed, but he was clearly excited. He got us to sing again, and taught us three-part harmonies for a section of "Not the Same". When he got us to do it acceptably, they started playing the song, and he cued us when we were supposed to come in. It sounded really good. At the end of the song Ben jumped up on a chair or the piano or something and started conducting us, having one half of the room singing the harmonies in short rhythmic bursts while the other half sang long notes. Dan said it sounded like the voice sounds on a keyboard. So fun. The last song they did was "One Angry Dwarf", and because they didn't have much time left they played it a bunch faster than it was in the original recording, but that just made it rock harder.
So there you go. An incredibly awesome show. Ben can make you feel like it's just you and him and 20 other people hanging out, instead of him playing to a crowd of several hundred. I definitely feel more charitably inclined towards the new cd, too. And he played a really good, strong set--almost two hours--and I was still home by 11pm (plenty of time to go to IHOP with Jorn!). Why can't all concerts be like that??
::edit:: Holy crap, I forgot to mention one of the coolest things about the show! They played "Bitches Ain't Shit", which is a Dr. Dre song. I had heard it before because it was up on itunes and Jorn had downloaded it for me. It's also the B-side on the "Landed" single (they played "Landed" too, by the way, which I also forgot to mention). But "Bitches Ain't Shit" was totally awesome and hilarious. You could tell that a lot of people in the crowd hadn't heard it before, because they were laughing so hard, but by the end we were all singing along with "bitches can't hang with the streets" and it was really pretty. Gah. Just one more thing that made a totally great show even more totally great.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-05-15 05:38 pm (UTC)From:also, i hate you for seeing ben. I WANT TO SEE BEN.
no subject
Date: 2005-05-15 06:00 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2005-05-15 06:08 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2005-05-15 06:33 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2005-05-15 06:01 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2005-05-15 06:09 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2005-05-15 06:43 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2005-05-16 01:18 pm (UTC)From:i am not your gary busey boy, love, love, love.
Date: 2005-05-16 01:08 am (UTC)From:Anyhow, FABULOUS show! I'm glad i was there to experience it. Especially CornMo. I heart CornMo.
Re: i am not your gary busey boy, love, love, love.
Date: 2005-05-16 01:19 pm (UTC)From: