Ben Folds was the front man of Ben Folds Five (95-99) who released five albums, before starting his solo career in 2001, releasing albums up to present day. Ben Folds’ history as a musician, and his creative enterprises and collaborations, contains enough information to write a book, so for the sake of time, this piece will just focus on his sold out House of Blues show. Ironically, there are still five members of Ben Folds’ band. Ben Folds on the piano and lead vocals, a guitar player, bass player, percussion, and drums. However there was also some sampling and trumpet as well.

This was the first time I saw them live, and I had a feeling I was in for a treat. I was never the biggest Ben Folds fan—I liked the hits he had in the 90s, but never followed him closely. It wasn’t until the last album, “Way to Normal”, that I started to appreciate them more. However, it was not surprising to see that Ben Folds has a massive following of devout fans.The sound is full of dramatic flair: the lyrics are literal, profane, wry, and always tell a story. The first example that comes to mind is “give me my money back you bitch…and don’t forget to give me back my black t-shirt.” The song “Hiroshima”, off of the last album, is a literal account of the Ben falling off the stage at a Tokyo performance and landing on his head.  Without knowing that lovely little anecdote, one might think the song was a metaphorical account about failure, and Ben Folds stated the video could potentially be a slideshow of people in power during their biggest moments of failure, with everyone watching.

Ben Folds played such songs as “Effington,” “Brick,” “Hiroshima,” “Bitch Went Nuts,” “Sorry Mr. Jones,” “The Secret Life of Morgan Bates,” “3.6,” (which brought tears to my eyes) and “You Don’t Know Me.” There were upbeat numbers, some of which sounded like a two-step, others sounding like the circus, and others sounding like the salsa; and then there were the slower, borderline depressing, ballads, with my personal preference being the former. What impressed me the most was while they were incredibly energetic and on point, they were also understated and calm. With such a theatrical sound, one might expect for their live performance to be obnoxious and over the top, but that was absolutely not the case. Ben was very friendly with the audience and talked a lot in between songs, explaining their back stories, introducing the various band members, and discussing how they were playing the Altoids tins, and how everyone from Billy Joel to Elton John were playing Altoids tins these days. Ben had the crowd eating out of his hand, everyone was singing along, dancing, and shouting requests. Ben stated that it was like playing at a prison. Toward the end of the show, he taught the audience 3 part harmony which he conducted in a round during and well after the songs’ end. When it was all over, he threw his piano stool at his piano and did the robot off stage.