Concert Review: Ben Folds Live At the DPAC 2/25/09



Last night I was fortunate to go to a Ben Folds concert!
This was not the first time I have seen the North Carolina native and hopefully it will not be the last. Ben Folds performed at Durham's new Performing Arts Center, which is beautiful. Ben jokingly said that it was great to have performed at such a Historic site. He also commented on how full he was from Mama Dip's, a fantastic restaurant in Chapel Hill, in between his songs.





The crowd was interesting, it was filled with people who had never heard Ben Folds, children under 10, Adults over 40, and the typical college students. The diverse crowd was there to celebrate Ben's massive crowd following from his Ben Folds Five Days to his current new solo album Way to Normal. We were all seated until about halfway through the show when most of us couldn't handle sitting during his awesome anthems and groovy songs. By the end of the show, everyone was applauding, dancing, and singing.

Ben's stage presence is amazing, he makes the entire hall feel like we are in his living room. He will sit down and teach you how he distorts his piano into sounding like a funky electric beat kit, which he showed us was from placing two Altoids cans over certain parts of the piano and a cheap distortion petal. He also did his now famous conducting of the crowd in Not the Same. He made the entire place fill up with three part harmony, and then divided the crowd in two, making it go into 6 distinct parts, with one side being the driving pulse.



Folds also explained the "leaked" tracks so many die hard Ben Folds fans got before the album Way to Normal came out. Ben explained that he and the band came up with alternate songs that had the same name on the album on a flight to Germany I believe. Anyways, the songs he promptly recorded and "leaked" were really different and some of them were better than the tracks that made it on the real Way to Normal album. That being said, Ben played a wide assortment of tunes, both real and fake, from his early career with Ben Folds Five to his current album.

Here is last nights set list:

Bitch Went Nutz (fake)
Effington
Brainwascht
Annie Waits
Alice Childress
Way To Normal
Bastard
You Don't Know Me
Lovesick Diagnostician (Dr. Yang fake)
Dr. Yang
Hiroshima
Landed
Free Coffee

Solo:
Fred Jones Pt. 2
Boxing
Emaline
Lullabye

Entire band:
Kylie From Connecticut
Zak and Sara
Rockin' The Suburbs
Kate
Army
Not The Same

Encore:
Fair
Philosophy, ending with Theme From Dr. Pyser

Check out these songs:
Ben Folds - In the Breeze
this song demonstrates Ben Folds' great improvisational skillz
buy it

Ben Folds-Bitch Went Nutz
off of Way To Normal
buy it

Ben Folds - Bitch Went Nutz (leaked fake)
off of Way To Normal Seeds and Stems
buy it

Ben Folds Five - Philosophy
off of Ben Folds Five
buy it





Please buy Ben's album Way To Normal and if you get a chance, go see him!
Look for Ben's new album where he is performing with University Acapella groups! It should be released in the early summer.

Comments

  1. Were there opening acts for the show you saw and how long did the opening acts go for?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes their were, Ben Folds usually has an a capella group from a near by college open directly before him. At this particular concert it was the Lorelai's UNC's a capella group. Before that, Miniature Tigers opened. Opening acts started at 7 and ended at around 8:45ish

    ReplyDelete
  3. what time was the concert over?

    ReplyDelete

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