Ben Folds at the MCFTA: Paper Airplane Tour
Last week @mrsbozz and I had the pleasure of attending a concert at one of our favorite local venues. Because we occasionally frequent the Midland Center for the Arts, we get mailings and fliers from them quite regularly talking about the events and shows they have coming up. When @mrsbozz saw that Ben Folds was coming she looked at me and asked if we could get tickets.
Of course we can.
Since we weren't buying a package deal this time (usually includes four different shows), I had to wait a little bit for the tickets to go on sale. They day they became available, I quickly logged into the site and snatched some seats pretty close to the front.
No lie, we were literally like two rows away from the stage. Row A, not too bad. Actually, if anything we almost ended up being too close. While we got a pretty good view of Ben, we weren't really able to see him play, because the piano blocked the view.
It was still a great show. We had a really good time and in case you haven't figured out, Ben Folds is going to be my subject for this #threetunetuesday sponsored by @ablaze. There was an opening act for the performance. It was a lady named Lindsey Kraft who I didn't know at the time is actually an accomplished actress. She has many credits on Internet Movie Database including The Big Bang Theory, and Grace and Frankie.
Her set consisted of a musical that she is currently working on about a relationship, so it was a bit odd. I'm actually not going to link to any of her stuff because there just isn't much out there. If you want to look her up Google is your friend.
Anyway, on to the music.
"Kate" is a song from the earlier days of Ben Folds as you can tell from the video. Back when he was with his band called Ben Folds Five. They had a few hits on the radio, but I wouldn't say they ever reached mainstream success. In fact, I was a little sad that the auditorium where this show was held was only about half full.
He seemed to take it in stride and still put on a great show, but people really don't know what they were missing.
Kate is a fun song that had a lot of audience interaction during some parts of it. @mrsbozz is admittedly a much bigger Ben Folds fan than I am, so I felt a little lost at times, but I still really enjoyed it.
After the first set, there was a brief intermission. Members of the audience were encouraged to go out to tables that were outside in the foyer and write their song requests on pieces of paper. They would then take those pieces of paper and turn them into paper airplanes.
This guy came on stage towards the end of the intermission and encouraged everyone to throw their paper airplanes to the stage. This was another instance were being so close didn't work out well for us. We ended up getting pegged in the back of the head by countless paper airplanes!
When the second set started, Ben came out on stage and randomly picked about ten of the airplanes to make up the second set of the night. It was really cool and he picked some really great songs to play. Including the big hit that Bend Folds Five had "Brick". Unfortunately, he didn't play one of his largest solo hits "Luckiest". I think @mrsbozz was a bit disappointed by that.
This photo above is him creating the second set from the requests.
Besides being an accomplished piano player Ben is also a really great songwriter. During the Covid lockdowns he did some online classes where people could learn to be songwriters. He would have them find news articles about the most mundane things in their area and write songs about them. It was pretty interesting.
This clip of the song "Landed" is obviously taking place at some kind of workshop that he was hosting.
Finally, I know this clip is a bit long, but I wanted to share it to show just how talented Ben Folds is. In just about ten minutes he composes a song from a line in a flyer that someone from the audience hands to him. It's pretty impressive. I forgot to mention that Ben Folds had a brief sting on TV as one of the coaches of the Acapella singing show called Sing-Off that catapulted Pentatonix to even greater fame than they already had.
Finally, I want to leave you with one last song. This is a really fun cover that Ben Folds did of a Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre song. For his own reasons, Ben no longer performs his cover of this song, but thanks to the Internet, there are still versions of it kicking around here and there. If you have sensitive ears, you might want to skip this one. The subject matter is very adult oriented. Just a fair warning.
If you ever get a chance to see Ben Folds live, I highly encourage it. It was a really great time and he puts on a fun show with a lot of great stories and songs. I think @mrsbozz really enjoyed herself as did I, and at the end of the day, that's all that really matters isn't it?
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Never heard of him. I will check him out. Thanks.
I hope you enjoy.
I've not seen Ben live, but I've got a couple of his albums that I like. He's a great pianist and songwriter. It sounds like he puts on a fun show.
It was a really awesome show. I was thinking about you while we were there and how you probably would have enjoyed it.
I am not familiar with him at all, but he is good. Talented guy! Getting pegged in the back of the head by paper airplanes doesn't sound like much fun, but I guess that's what you get for sitting in almost VIP!
I'll check him out some more! Looks like a cool evening!
It was a really fun evening. His music is definitely an acquired taste. The melodies and things like that aren't always what you would expect. I'm sure he would also be the first to admit he doesn't have the most technical voice, but he can play piano like a beast!
Great article. Good evening and peace be upon you.
Thank you! To you as well!