Wow. Wow wow wow. Ben folds was AMAZING. The set was over an hour and a half long. He played old ones. He played new ones. He played new ones that haven’t been recorded that were written in sound check two weeks ago. He even played Brick, which is one of those songs you figure an artist would never play again. After playing Jesusland, he told us that they should have “dumbed-down” the production of the new album and that this was how it should have been recorded, and they then played a version of Jesusland you might hear, oh, on church TV? They were poking fun at large-scale televised church music and it was a riot.

For anyone that’s heard The Gourds’ version of Snoop’s Gin and Juice, you’ll appreciate this. Ben and the band played a Dr. Dre song called Bitches Aint Shit. Oh my god, it was so freaking hilarious. Hearing those lyrics come out of his mouth, with that loungy music, was so funny I was laughing out loud. But of course it was executed flawlessly without any hint of sarcasm, and after the song ended, he got up from the piano and started talking shit to it (the piano). If you can imagine a scrawny guy with glasses raising his arms and balking at a piano, yeah, that’s pretty much what it was.

Somewhere towards the middle of the set, the drummer and bassist left, leaving Ben to serenade us solo. This was when Brick showed up, and also Army, which had Ben doing some of the best audience participation I’ve ever seen. There’s a portion of the song that includes horns, and since he didn't have any horn players, he used us. I’ve seen bands try to pull this off before, and most of the time no one really gives a shit. A select few will participate, but most of the crowd (me too) just stands there. Ben got up from the piano and waved his arm at half of the crowd and told us to do this [insert bah-bah-bah type singing] and then told the other half to do more such singing, so that the two parts layered on top of each other. He essentially became a choir director so that we sang the stuff that the horns play on the recorded track. So when it came time to sing, all he had to do was look at us and every single person sang. I couldn’t believe it. He really got everyone to sing, and it sounded good, and it made my night. I was really hoping he’d play Army, but I didn’t expect he’d try something like that. Mad props to Ben.

He also did something similar on Not The Same, teasing both sides of the audience by having them start and stop in the middle of their part. Other highlights of the night included Don’t Change Your Plans, The Ascent of Stan, Annie Waits, Gone, Still Fighting It, Zak and Sara, Landed, Gracie, You To Thank, Trusted, Prison Food, and a version of Narcolepsy that absolutely rocked. The place lit up and the sound system could hardly handle it. They closed (the encore) with a high-powered version of One Angry Dwarf that taxed the sound system again. Rock.

But the music snob in me made a couple observations. 1) The intro to Landed sounds a hell of a lot like the intro to James Taylor’s Fire and Rain. 2) The main riff to Prison Food sounds like Brick, but speed up; the key even sounds the same. Anyway, those are small complaints. The show was great, Ben was great, the band was great, and I’d do it again even if I had a final the next day. Ok maybe not the next day, but they day before the day before the final.