I’ve been to another Ben Folds concert, this time in Northampton. Two friends and Dan and I all went. Ben was solo this time. We all agreed it was awesome and my one friend even got to scream the f word with the audience during Rockin’ the Suburbs. I couldn’t find the setlist online anywhere so here it is as far as I can remember, the order may be a little off but the songs should be right.
Free Coffee (real album)
Sentimental Guy
Alice Childress
Effington
Jesusland
All U Can Eat (they give no f)
Bastard
Landed
Gone
Kate
Still Fighting It
Gracie
Annie Waits
Zak and Sara
*Picture Window (Hope is a Bastard)
*Belinda
*Levi Johnson’s Blues
You Don’t Know Me featuring Kate Heidke-Miller
Dr Yang (real album)
B*****s Ain’t S**t (acapella!)
The Luckiest
Such great Heights
Army
Not the Same
Narcolepsy
Rockin the Suburbs (encore)
Points of interest:
In the first third of the set I thought Ben was doing a particularly fine job with the piano (you know it was obviously very technically difficult and jazzy and he was playing it quite fast) and no one was clapping or cheering when it really deserved it. So I gave a high pitched shout like “Woo!” and just after I did this Ben smiled and gave a little nod.
Ben gave us 4 parts for the song Bastard, which we then messed up. That is, everyone else did. I was perfect. It was fairly hard, does he think this is an audience of music majors?
Alot of people sang the backup vocals to Kate. That was really fun especially because Ben started tilting the mike at us like, “Your turn, audience.”
Finally I was not the only one to clap during Zak and Sara. Several of us in the front clapped and Ben definitely heard us. The best part was right before Ben leaned over a little and raised his eyebrows as if questioning whether we would clap at the appropriate time.
The three new songs are those which I marked with a star. Ben called them the “Nick Trilogy” because they were written by a real guy named Nick who also has a fictional persona named Nick which Ben explained to us (not very well).
My Dan accurately predicted that Ben would utilize the awesome vocal talent of his opener band for the female part in You Don’t Know Me.
During Dr Yang, Ben broke the piano and called for someone in his crew to come onstage and try to fix it. While they were doing so the audience began calling various requests to Ben. He finally decided to grace us with a song acapella while we waited, it is the one next on my list. While it is absolutely riddled with curses, the melody is beautiful and the audience was more than happy to sing along on cue. At one point Ben improv’ed the line “I undid that s**t (pointing at the piano), I’m heartbroke.” When he finally got the piano back he said to it, “Ok Mr Baldwin. It’s just you and me.”
The rest of the songs were performed as expected, with audience inclusion in Army and Not The Same. I am never able to recognize Rockin the Suburbs and Such Great Heights right away when I hear them live, but Dan always is. At the end of Army this time Ben sang the lyric, “I thought about a lovely Steinway.”
Overall this was the best Ben Folds concert I’ve been to. I attribute it to the good seats and non-collegey atmosphere. That’s not to say Ben didn’t rock, because he did. But the good seats definitely make a difference.