LA don’t dance. That’s what I came to realize last night as me and my three lovely cohorts gyrated and bounced and rocked out to the musical genius of Ben Folds. Three of us were die-hard fans to begin with, and I’m pretty sure the fourth is now a concert convert. Ben is a rocker. Don’t let his physical demeanor and the fact that he sits behind a piano fool you. Actually, he hardly ever “sits” behind the piano. He spends most of the concert half standing over the bench railing on the ivories faster than my eyes distinguish. But mostly everyone around us was as still as lambs. Perhaps that’s why he NEVER comes to California. I’ve been here four years and that’s the first time I’m seen him swing through, playing in The City this past weekend. People did participate though. That’s one of the most fun things about a Ben Folds concert: the responsorial obligation. It’s almost at the level of, like, Catholicism or the Rocky Horror Picture Show (very similar, I know). True fans of Ben know where to clap, sing and scream “FUCK” at the top of our collective lungs. “Think I’ll write a screenplay. / Think I’ll take it to L.A.” was sang with the full might of the crowded room at the Palladium. Thank God it was that full. Maybe he’ll come back more often. I’ll see him every time.
Ben’s a musician’s musician. He isn’t complacent with the sounds a piano makes from being “played”. He gets in there. He rubs the microphone across the strings or he plucks at them, or (a first for me to see) he puts little metal boxes inside the damn thing, pushes the distortion pedal and starts his fingers flying to create what you’d swear was entirely electronic.
Also, when you’re a musician’s musician, and you play in L.A., musical friends tend to cameo. Sara Bareilles led the audience vote over which was the best out of four local California collegiate A Cappella groups (USC’s Reverse Osmosis won for their rendition of “Fair”) and then she came back later to step into Regina Spektor’s shoes for her take on “You Don’t Me.” Weirder still was Josh Groban joining Ben in the encore to fill vocals on “Still Fighting It”. And you thought that song couldn’t get more powerful.
It was an effing amazing set. He played for two hours BEFORE the encore. You didn’t want it to end and he wasn’t going anywhere real quick. He did finally finish though, with, what was in his words “a collaboration with Dr. Dre,” a soft cover “Bitches Ain’t Shit.” Bitches, indeed, cannot hang with the streets.
Benny will always be in my top five, and this show just served to remind me how much I will always love the man.
Ben Folds – “Hiroshima (B B B Benny Hit His Head)”
Ben Folds – “Bitches Ain’t Shit”
Ben Folds – “Still Fighting It”
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Comments ( 1 Comment )
Adam Morse added these pithy words on May 21 09 at 9:38 amMan Ilove Ben Folds too, which reminds me I always forget to look up what the song Brick is about. Everyone keeps telling me my favorite song has a “hidden meaning’. Googling nOHMY GOODNESS I CAN’T BELIEVE THAT – MY HEAD IS EXPLODING!
