yep.amazing.
kristina, heidi and i decided to go watch ben folds rock the piano. and rock the piano he did. i'm not sure i've ever seen such a rocking of piano. i don't know how any single person can have that much energy night in and night out. the man was all over the piano and stage and made it look fun.
good showmanship, that.
so we roll in to the michigan theater a bit late and catch the tail end of the opening band, and the two songs we heard were actually pretty good. it's a rare thing for me to like opening bands, so kudos to them.
then we waited the appropriate half hour for the university of michigan acappella group. that was mad random at the time. of course, ben later mentioned that an album was coming out with a bunch of universities doing acappella versions of his songs. so that made a little more sense.
they were okay.
the first song, from an artist i don't know that wrote a song i don't know, seemed good, but the soloist wasn't all that strong. when she rocked the notes during the chorus she was awesome, but the verses were really quiet and i couldn't hear her. that's only an issue if you wanted to know what she was singing, i guess. the second song, which was a sarah bareilles song, was amazing. the ol' girl who did the solo kinda blew my mind. she knew her way around some vocals.
sadly, the third song, was a ben folds song. probably would not do that when ben folds was gonna come out right after that and make you look a little silly. nothing personal. it may have been awesome, if they had mic'd it correctly. they gave the main mic to one of the backup people and one of the backup mics to the soloist. again, i could barely hear the lyrics, but the 'bum-bum' of the background singer sounded great. yay.
then we waited the half hour for the moment we had waited for. which would be waiting for ben folds. which us old folk did pretty well. but those kids, and their dog...
grrr.
they started cheering for ben like 15 minutes before you knew he was even going to be on stage. so embarrassing. agk! and it wasn't a big cheer. half the place started the slow-to-fast clap like we were in the mighty ducks or some cheese. and then 10 people started chanting 'ben folds'. and then it would die out and be quiet. then it would start up again. seriously. i was shocked he came out.
and we sat behind four girls who must have been 16 because they were all playing with their new verizon phones and texting one another and talking and giggling really loudly. more sigh.
besides all of that, ben folds was awesome. that was one of the happiest shows i've ever been to, in regards to the talent. that man. his elbows playing the piano. his tambourine man with the dramatic tambourining. his male guitar player standing in for regina spektor on a duet. ridiculous. i laughed. i cried. happiness.
he made up a rap song about putting altoid tins on his piano keys as he was putting altoid tins on his piano keys.
he made up another song about the entire show and how he couldn't deviate from his playlist because 'the man' would be upset and he had to make him happy by playing the same songs everynight and droppin' the f-bomb here and there for good measure. he referred to himself as a wind up monkey. ben folds. monkey. bully!
also, he was really good about playing to the audience and getting our participation in parts of songs that one would think an audience would participate, such as clapping and choruses. sadly, in this respect as well, he did a solo piece of 'fred jones' with his piano that was beautiful, that the whole audience thought, 'hey, i know this song. i sing it in my car. i would do a really good job of singing it here as well. and i know ben wants me to sing along with him. he basically came to perform for us to perform with him, right?' thanks, everybody. you really added a lot of depth to the song by proving you knew it. what? sarcasm? me? never.
all in all, a good show, an embarrassing audience.
i'll watch that cat anywhere. and i'll sit in a starbucks with him. i would.
groove.
