BF...F?

Last night, Randy offered me an extra ticket to see Ben Folds at the Michigan Theater, to which I said, "Of course!" I hadn't seen him live in 7 or 8 years. I had pretty much totally soured on Rocking The Suburbs, completely skipped over his 2005 album, Songs For Silverman, and had only a passing knowledge of Way To Normal. But last night was a blast. Great variety, the band was ultra tight and surprisingly professional. They played for two and a half hours and were almost always entertaining. To the best of my memory, this was the setlist:

Bitch Went Nuts
Effington
Brainwashed
You Don't Know Me
Annie Waits
Alice Childress
Way To Normal
Landed
Dr. Yang (Fake Version)
Dr. Yang
Hiroshima
Bastard
Free Coffee
Free Coffee Town
Boxing (solo)
Fred Jones, Pt. 2 (solo)
Lullabye (solo)
The Last Polka (solo)
Kylie From Connecticut
Tom & Mary
Kate
Zak & Sara
Army
***********************
Fair
Rockin' The Suburbs

My favorite moments were "You Don't Know Me," "Landed" and "Boxing" (the first two, I haven't taken seriously enough - both really great songs; "Boxing" was just really genuine and well played). Of course I loved all of the BF5 songs and I'd never seen him play "Alice Childress" which was one of my favorite songs in high school. And it was great to hear him play anything from Reinhold Messner that wasn't "Army" (though "Army" is still awesome, just expected). So overall, I was totally won over and now I'm surprised to find myself on a Ben Folds kick.

Here is a video of "Lullabye" from the Ben Folds Five reunion last year. I was shocked that, with the exception of a horn section, they were able to cover all of the parts on Reinhold Messner between the three of them. The whole concert is available at Myspace and is (obviously) highly recommended.