GIG REVIEW: Ben Folds
- Posted on February 6, 2007 1:04 PM
- 0 comments
Hammersmith Apollo
Thursday 23rd January 2007
By Matt Killeen
The bastard love child of Vince Guaraldi and Billy Joel was returning to our shores to hock an album of B-sides and EPs. Now normally I'd frown on that kind of thing but I've got an unused ticket from a cancelled tour a few years back, so damn right he's touring - he owes me.
There are several ways to overcome the horrendous sound problems that beset his opening few numbers at the 'Apollo, where I can only assume the band didn't soundcheck or someone really had it in for him. One way is to have a hugely partisan audience, fans to a person, all scarves, Quiksilver t-shirts and laptop bags. The other is to charge through numbers with the energy of the Ramones on speed, leap from song to song and periodically play with new toys. When an artist stops midway through a top forty hit to play The Waltons on the melodica it would take a harsh person to complain about the swarm of bees that appear to be part of the show.
With the exception of when he gets sick and postpones shows, I like Ben Folds. I'm a fan. So maybe, as a reviewer, I need to justify the adoration: Ben Folds has that seemingly effortless ability to write tunes that you think you've known for years - you haven't of course, it's just the judicious use of the same thirteen chords. This makes virtually everything he does feel like an old classic.
Several artists have that ability but what makes Ben Folds relatively unique is his ability to show you how he does it. Watch me, he says, I can play Bitches Ain't Shit and it'll still make you cry. I got a minor seventh here that'll make you weep, have some irresistible harmonies as well, go on treat yourself.
Then he tells a story. The old man with the wasted life (Fred Jones Part 2), the cool girl adored from a far (Kate), the car journey through the Mid West (Jesusland) or the bullied awkward child seeking validation (Underground and One Angry Dwarf). The audience see the images, come to know the people and exist within the world he has created. When he plays Still Fighting It, people actually show each other photos of their children. This audience is educated. They know when to sing, when to shut up and when to sing in harmony. The highlight of the show is Army and, as perfect a pop song as it is, it is the crowd-as-brass-section that really makes the spine tingle.
Ben Folds knows that it is the audience that makes the gig, not the virtuoso piano or the suspended 4ths. He lets them make it and then he goes home, the kid who 'was never cool in school', big and popular at last.
This was Ben Folds doing what he does and we did the rest.
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