Ben Folds, the American singer-songwriter from North Carolina, delivered a stunning performance at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts on March 29th, 2023. The concert featured Folds’s incredible talent on the piano coupled with his intricate songs and sardonic wit. The experience was emotional, raucous, and entertaining for the near-capacity crowd at KCPA.
Folds took the stage to a recording of Harry Nilsson’s version of “One,” and the crowd erupted in cheers as he strode onto the stage to take the seat in front of a beautiful grand piano. He didn’t say a word as he sat; he just started playing, and the audience was immediately drawn into his performance.
Folds’ faithful often clapped or sang at certain parts unprompted, and it was a practice that would carry on all night. His fans are literally members of his band, and they know the parts they’re supposed to perform, which created an intimate atmosphere in the spacious auditorium.
The third song, “So There” began like a freight train, and Folds sang:
You taught me nothing
I owe you nothing
How could I forget you
When there’s nothing to forget?
This bitter breakup song had him playing twinkling high notes to pounding low notes with extreme emotion, making the audience go wild. You get the sense Folds could play technically perfectly if he wanted to, but purposely goes in the opposite direction, unleashing his feelings with every pounding of the piano keys.
Folds engaged with the audience between many of the songs. Sometimes his musings were deep, sometimes they were poignant and many times they were comedic, even when he didn’t intend them to be. At one point, Ben says “So UR-BAH-NAH”, with the “BAH” sound in the middle immediately getting a chuckle from the crowd.
Folds then played the title track of his new album, “What Matters Most,” which is available in June. Folds told the crowd about how difficult it was to write this song. He said, “It’s been through some stuff.”
“As we all have” someone yells not far from me in the back of the auditorium. Folds acknowledged as the crowd agreed. The song was originally about cleaning out a storage locker. Folds said he talked to his therapist about finally getting rid of some of the “junk.”
“I told him I needed to say a proper ‘goodbye’ to every item,” informed Folds. “It’s like, ‘Goodbye’…sniff-sniff…power strip.” The audience roared with laughter.
However, while writing it, he got the worst phone call of his life, learning of the death of a close friend. Folds said that significantly altered how the song ended up, and “What Matters Most” also became the theme for the album.
Folds’s Patreon members (a fan club of sorts, where fans become artistic patrons) played a game with him where they would find a cool story that could be a song. Once they chose a challenging headline, which was, in Folds’s words: “Bullshit-fucking-worn-out-jiveass-cultural thing.” The headline was: “Why I Won’t Remove My Shoes When I Enter Your House.” Ben wrote the song from the perspective of “Why would someone even bother to write that?” He imagined the author was an old classmate he knew in junior high who he remembered as carefree and loved to laugh. In the song, this person now emails him incessantly with “QAnon shit, ant-vax shit, and everything so negative that the media throws out to divide us.” The song was as irreverent as it was relevant, eliciting many laughs, but ending with the line:
“It’s a short, sad, beautiful life. Do you ever see it that way?”
Folds’s song “Not the Same,” was eventful. Folds needed four-part counterpart harmonies from the audience and proceeded to teach them the four parts, letting them choose their own skill level.
“Choose your skill level and you’re in that group. Group 1: Very beginners. Group 2: Beginners. Group 3: Intermediate and Group 4: Hard.” instructed Folds. “Some towns suck at this. I won’t say who, but they do.”
The crowd learned the parts one at a time from Folds, and by the end of the “practice,” you heard four-part harmonies fill the auditorium, with Folds up front like a conductor. Now it was time for the song, and when it came to the harmonies part, the crowd sang their parts impressively.
Right in the middle of the song, some guy from the audience yells out “Rock this Bitch,” which is something that happens at his shows. Everything grinds to a halt. Ben takes a moment and addresses the inanity of the request while in the middle of another song. When he goes back to playing, he says: “What the fuck am I supposed to be playing?” The distraction proved too much, so he gives in and starts an improv song called “Rock this Bitch” which causes the crowd to erupt in laughter and cheers. The whole song was made up on the spot about the guy who had just interrupted him. There was lots of laughing and even crowd participation. He even did some more improvised harmonies with the audience. His musical improv skills were so impressive, part of the crowd stood up while applauding after the song ended.
Folds was treated to a standing ovation at the end of his last song, “Army,” and he returned a minute later to perform “The Luckiest” for the encore.
Folds is an extremely talented piano player and songwriter, but at the end of the day, he’s an artist who knows how to entertain and connect with an audience. That quality can be more valuable than raw talent when your chosen profession is to entertain. While the crowd was largely Folds’ fans, I think he won most of everyone else over with his music, wit, and personality.
