benjamin scott folds

Wednesday night, Lady MacBeth and I headed to glorious downtown Columbus for a Ben Folds concert. It wasn't your typical Ben Folds concert.  (Or so I'm told - I've never actually seen Ben live before.)  It wasn't even on the tour dates list of his current tour.  The difference was that instead of playing with a band, he played with the Columbus Symphony.  They still played all his songs, but arranged for orchestra.  Some of the songs were just lovely and the rest were freaking awesome.  I don't know who could have come up with such a great idea, but I really liked it.

I think one of the reasons that I like Ben so much is that he actually studied music.  He really can rock out on the piano.  He knows the chord progressions and the modes and all that.  And he's totally amazing at it.  You've heard his songs on the radio, no doubt.  But he is even better than that.  And he loves performing, you can tell.  He really caters to the crowd.  After the program was finished, he dismissed the orchestra and just played a few of his songs on the piano by himself and it was still awesome.

(Side note: the opening "band" was an acapella group from Ohio University called the Leading Tones. I wonder what they resolve to! Ha ha! Get it? Anyone... no? ...chirp chirp....)

Point being, if you ever get the chance to see Ben Folds performing live, I highly recommend it.  Especially with an orchestra.