1 post tagged “ben folds five”

This is going to sound weird but one of the punk as fuck, raucous, straight up balls out entertaining gigs I ever went to was Ben Folds Five back in 1996. It sort of embarrasses me to say that actually but it doesn't change the fact that it's true.

It may seem hard to imagine - the titular Ben Folds is the epitome of nerd chic and his two band mates at the time, Darren Jesse and Robert Sledge - aren't obvious candidates for the rock'n'roll hair raiser hall of fame. Plus the fact that it's a dude with a grand piano plus two other dudes on drums and bass.

But seriously, the gig was wild. For a start there was a huge amount of energy - Folds plays the piano like he's having hate sex with it and since the band was relatively unknown at the time the smallish venue was completely packed with nothing but hardcore fans. And me - I'd gone on a whim and was probably the only one in the joint who didn't know all the lyrics to all the songs.

And for a guy tied to a piano he was surprisingly mobile - I mean the dude climbed on top of the thing, stamped the keys with his feet, pounded them with his fists and elbows and smacked it with his stool. The encore ended with him hurling the stool across the stage at the keys to play the final crescendo.

The interaction with the audience was continuous - since then Folds has regular segments at the end of shows where he encourages different sections of  the audience to do the trumpet and saxophone parts during "Army" and a 3 part harmony during "Not The Same". If you're lucky then during the latter he'll start conducting the audience like a demented puppet master - one gig I went to he manipulated us like an instrument until we were doing, if I remember correctly, the them from Jaws.

At this gig however it was much more intimate - lots of requests shouted out (and often fulfilled, if only for a few seconds) for odd cover versions. I stumbled out later without any idea what time it was, my legs sore from jumping, my (probably flannelet) shirt drenched in sweat. I think I stage dived (dove?) a few times - to be honest it's all a bit of a blur.

 
 At the time the whole thing was a refreshing palate cleanser in the post grunge era - I was just starting college doing a CS degree, started reading Wired and the web was taking off. It kind of felt ok to be nerd who rocked out and Ben Folds Five felt like a soundtrack to that - well that and the Prodigy. But that's another story.

It was clever, witty lyrics, distorted pianos and self deprecation and I lapped up the two first albums.

After that, not so much though - there are still some gems but either I got older, or he did. I went to a gig last night and maybe it was the fact that a weekend of camping in 100°F or the fact that it was a Sunday night in Oakland or the fact that the sound quality was pretty awful but I just didn't get the same buzz as I had at previous gigs.

It's like the saying goes - you can never go home again. But you can shop there.  Or listen to tracks from the first two albums all day.