Better late than never

Ok, so the Ben Folds concert was like 4 days ago, but I haven't had a chance to blog about it because I've had company, and somehow it seems rude to blog when you have company.

First of all, the concert was held at Wolf Trap, which is a pretty nice place. It's a nice open-air venue out in Bumble-fudge Virginia. Kinda like Lakewood/Hi-Fi Buys, minus the ghetto. There were lawn seats, but for like 9 dollars more you could get actual seats under the covering, which are quite a bit closer to the stage, and substantially less itchy than sitting in the grass. So I sprung for the actual seats.

My high school friend/former-fellow-band-nerd Jessica was cool enough to fly out from California for the show, so that was cool. I probably wouldn't have gone alone. I'm just not cool like that. I was also supposed to go with my boss Patrick, but when we got to the Metro, he realized he'd left his tickets at the office, so he went back and got them and I went ahead and got on the train. And the concert was such that finding anyone who you weren't already with proved pretty difficult, so I never saw him at the show. Bummer.

The opening act was a guy named Ben Lee. He's from Sydney, Australia, so he had that cool accent when he was talking between songs. I'd heard of him previously only because I knew he'd worked with Ben Folds on a few projects, but I'd never heard his work. Not bad, really.

As he came out, he said he'd been lucky enough to play our 'filing in music'. At least he came by it honest. as he went through his set, he periodically asked if everyone was filing in well. I thought that was pretty funny. I like musicians that don't take themselves too seriously. My favorite song from his set was a tune called 'Catch my Disease.' It's pretty catchy. I checked out some more of his music online after I got home...seems pretty good. I recommend it.

After Ben Lee's set, I figured it'd be a few minutes before Rufus Wainright came out, so I decided to get some nachos. We took our sweet time in line, and even looked for Patrick some more before we went back to our seats. We were standing on the mezzanine behind our seats when I heard people start clapping and some guy saying ‘Hi’ into the microphone. The cheering was surprisingly loud, but I just figured that Rufus Wainright has a big following in Virginia. I peaked around the railing and saw someone sitting at the piano that looked suspiciously like...Ben Folds?

At first I thought he was just doing a duet with Rufus Wainright (Careless Whisper, perhaps?) but no, he broke right into ‘Bastard’ -- so I figured he actually was going second. What the hell? But whatever. It was still a sweet concert.

He didn’t do too terribly much from the new album. Just ‘Bastard’, ’You to Thank’, ‘Jesusland’ and ‘Landed’. And that was fine. I liked hearing his old(er) stuff like ‘Zak and Sara’, ‘Still Fighting It’, ‘Gone’ (which he never did solo because he said he needed more instrumentation). I find it curious now that he’s ‘solo’, he has he exact same set up as Ben Folds Five with only a drummer and bass player. But it’s cool.

I was pleasantly surprised to hear some of his lesser known stuff like ‘All U Can Eat’, and of course ‘Bitches ain’t Shit’ with a sign language interpreter was one of the highlights of the evening. I totally dig white guys making fun of rap music by covering it.

The only Ben Folds Five song they played was ‘Philosophy’, and as usual, it was mind-blowing. Anyone who’s heard it played live knows that he likes to incorporate both the cool lick from ‘Theme from Dr. Pyser’ and well as Dick Dale’s ‘Miserlou’, a.k.a. the Pulp Fiction song. Seeing a guy imitate tremolo guitar on a piano is something that music dorks and casual fans alike can appreciate.

He ended with ‘Not the Same’, which included some audience participation, i.e. having us sing the 3 part harmony. Toward the end, he stopped playing the piano all together, and just played the audience. It’s hard to explain, but it was really cool.

There were some songs I was hoping to hear but didn’t -- One Angry Dwarf, Emaline, Lullabye, Army, etc. But I can’t really complain. It was still a great show. Better than the second time I saw him, but not even close to the first. I was so spoiled by my first Ben Folds concert that every other one I ever go to will pale in comparison. I was on the front row, touching the stage at the Roxy, literally within arms reach of the piano. He also played for like 3 hours and talked to the audience (of less than 1000) the entire time. Hands down best concert I’ve ever seen. Anyway.

I half contemplated leaving after Ben Folds, as I didn’t really care for Rufus Wainright, but Jessica is apparently kind of a fan, so I thought I’d give him a shot. Eh...I wasn’t impressed. I wasn’t a fan before his set, and I’m still not. His music is entirely too slow and depressing. And something that’s kinda quirky is that, while he has this deep, vibrato singing voice...once he stops singing, he becomes a total flaming, flamboyant, stereotypical gay guy. Lisp and all.

He did have one song I kinda got into, though. ‘Hallelujah’, which was apparently on the Shrek soundtrack, was pretty cool. Otherwise, I could’ve left right after Ben Folds’ set and not regretted it at all.

Depressing music notwithstanding, I was completely fine with Rufus Wainright until the introduction to his last song. He made the point that ‘America is pretty much at war with itself...’ and I agreed with that. He then said ‘we gotta take it to the streets, y’all...’ Which, I knew he wasn’t talking to me, because I highly doubt that he would consider me part of ‘we’. But even that’s fine. I’m all for political debate in the public forum. That’s great. But then he went on to make some disparaging remarks about Republicans, and how gays, blacks, and women need to be careful and protect their rights, etc. And that’s where I felt he crossed the line into ‘totally unnecessary’ territory.

Despite the fact that, to my knowledge, it’s still legal to be gay, and that blacks, women, black women, and every other American citizen are afforded the same rights, there are still people like this guy out there being all alarmist and saying that Republicans are going to make it illegal to be gay, take away women’s right to vote, reinstate slavery and force everyone to go to church.

And personally, a music concert is not the place for such a rant. When I turn on the news, I don’t want to hear the anchors try to sing karaoke or play an instrument. Likewise, I don’t want to hear musicians talk about the news. That’s not their job. I deal with politics all day at work. I don’t want to hear about it when I’m trying to relax. And judging by the reaction of the crowd, neither do they. It just put a damper on what was otherwise a very good show, and I thought it was a shame that he had to go there.