Of Miles Rausch

The Ben Folds Concert

Tweet

Also known as, The Last Ben Folds post for a while.

In fuzzy con­trast to The Bright Eyes Con­cert, The Ben Folds Con­cert was a bril­liantly social expe­ri­ence. It began with Godfather’s Pizza, where Holli and I met Britty, Dan, David, Chris, Tyler, Tony, Nathan and Brian Granquist. We were for­tu­nate enough to have had David buy us pizza as we drove from Mankato, where we had gone to mass. First pleas­ant sur­prise of the night was that Godfather’s Pizza has fan­tas­tic breadsticks.

Then we went on to the con­cert. Gus­tavus Adol­phus is sit­u­ated high upon a hill in tiny St. Peter, MN. It sits like a manor lord­ing over the res­i­den­tial serfs that toil for its plea­sure. The park­ing was a fair jog from where the venue entrance was. Britty, Holli and I walked together. We walked past a full bot­tle of ketchup sit­ting by the side­walk. That’s impor­tant for the end of the story.

We con­nected with the rest of the group in the line. The queue was daunt­ing, but fast-moving. Once inside we got pat­ted down. Either these secu­rity guards were bad at their jobs, hated Ben Folds, or were going pretty lax. I had, in my pock­ets, a dig­i­tal cam­era, cell­phone, iPod touch, keys, change, and a checkbook-sized wal­let. I made no effort to hide any of these odd shapes, and he pat­ted me lightly and allowed me entrance. This was the first exam­ple of how easy and awe­some the secu­rity was at the concert.

Before the show, Britty and I made pur­chases. She bought the “faces” shirt, and I bought the “I <3'd Ben Folds before he sucked" t-shirt and a magnet that read, "I went to a Ben Folds concert and all I could afford was this cheap refrigerator magnet." or something like that. Then I changed into my shirt, and I made Holli keep some stuff of mine in her purse, which she resented, but deep down she loves when I make her feel useful.

The opener, Ari Herstand (thank you, Google), was a good musician, but he had a gimmick. This guy has a fascination with looping looping looping looping (I already used that joke in a comment, sorry). Basically, he played guitar and trumpet, sang, and beat boxed. But, being just one guy, he needed a way to use all his talents simultaneously. Thankfully for him, there's the foot pedal. When he did it the first time, we were all impressed. Then we were less impressed. Then I started to get annoyed. Then I had this strange daydream where I met Ari after the concert, and he asked me how I liked his show. I responded that the looping thing was neat at first, but then it got old. He got angry and retorted, "THAT'S what I do! I loop! I'm the looping guy!" After that, seeing how I hurt his feelings, I cut him more slack.

Dur­ing this time, Holli and I decided to move up to the bleach­ers. It was hot on the floor, and I couldn’t really see. The move was a good one, at least for me. It was a lit­tle more dif­fi­cult to make out what was said on stage, but the pho­tos were much bet­ter. Also, it wasn’t as warm, and I didn’t keep get­ting bumped into by drunk hol­lege girls.

After an excru­ci­at­ing wait, Ben Folds and his duo came out. Ben is such a geek. Even the way he walked out was kinda nerdy. There was a sea of peo­ple on the floor and in the stands. Cam­eras were every­where. All these glow­ing rec­tan­gles floated in awe in front of the stage. Cam­era flashes burst like light­ning, briefly illu­mi­nat­ing a smil­ing face or two and the odd “thumbs up”. Ben wasted no time. As soon as he was behind the piano, he began.

Set List
– — - — - -
In Between Days (I think… I didn’t rec­og­nize it.)
Gone
Bas­tard
First song on new album — Hiroshima
Free Cof­fee — with dis­tor­tion ped­dle and odd objects on piano strings
Zak and Sara
Landed
Lul­labye
Annie Waits
All U Can Eat
B****es Ain’t S**t
Nar­colepsy to Piano Solo and back
Brick
Lets Get Phys­i­cal (goof­ing around)
Los­ing Lisa
Bat­tle of Who Could Care Less
Rockin’ the Sub­urbs
One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces
Kate
Not The Same
– — - — - -
If there’s a God he’s laugh­ing at us and our foot­ball team?
Phi­los­o­phy (and Misirlou?)

The con­cert was bril­liant. I’m a lit­tle bummed that there weren’t two encores, but it was a good encore for being sin­gle. Ben’s a good per­former, and he pretty much gets down to busi­ness. He has a cou­ple “crown involve­ment” songs, which help keep things inter­est­ing. Also, the story behind Hiroshima is a good one.

Check out my Ben Folds Con­cert pho­to­set.

Here’s some videos I took while I was at it.

B****es Can’t Hang With The Streets

Not The Same

Oh, the ketchup? When we walked back to the car, it was destroyed. Ketchup was every­where. Too bad I didn’t get a pic­ture of it.