Ben Folds Stuff
Man, this has been a good semester for concerts. First, there was the Guster extravaganza of February and March. (And I do love Guster. Have I mentioned that yet?) This past Friday, it was Ben Folds. As I mentioned previously, Ben's one of those artists I've been wanting to see since high school. I didn't get the chance to see him play with Darren Jessee and Robert Sledge as Ben Folds Five, but this solo concert at Davidson College, near his hometown of Winston-Salem, was simply fantastic and well worth the roughly three-hour drive from Blacksburg.
Fred, Gerritt, and I turned the event into a mini-road trip. I snapped a few photos while we walked around Davidson's campus and downtown. Fred was the only one of us who'd heard anything about the place, and that was in vague reference to lacrosse. All we could figure out was that it had a beautiful campus, that it was a pretty heavy liberal arts school, and that it had a lot of libraries (four was our final count after walking through probably half the campus). There was also some weird kind of tall building attached to their student center that could easily have been found near the shuttle facilities at the Kennedy Space Center.
We had dinner at a tasty Italian pizza/pasta/subs place, Palermo's (they're Davidson's Neighborhood Independent Pizzeria), before heading to the show. We were a little disconcerted at not seeing any college-aged people while walking through the campus, but eventually we ran into a few after entering Belk Arena.
The show itself felt very intimate, despite being in what was basically a gym, for all intents and purposes. We got there early enough to get seats at eye level to the piano, deftly avoiding the standing crowd on the gym floor. Ben was in a great mood too, it seemed. He graciously took requests for pretty obscure Majosha and Ben Folds Five songs throughout the night, in addition to treating us to a few rare covers ranging from George Michael to The Darkness. He essentially played every one of his songs, both from Ben Folds Five and his solo career, that I could have hoped to hear. I pity that poor piano, though; it sure takes a beating over the course of one of his concerts.
For some inkling of how energetic and brilliant his solo show is, pick up his live album when you get a chance. It's got a lot of gems on it, including the audience participation portions that we also got to do on "Army" and "Not The Same." In summary, go see Ben Folds. And soon!
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