One of the central musical characters of the 1990s and early 2000s, Ben Folds opened his Ben Folds & A Piano tour at Brisbane's The Fortitude Music Hall on Wednesday evening.
Folds has a longstanding and deep connection with Australia; ranging from relationships including with our state symphony orchestras, to touring and collaborating with a number of our artists (including Ben Lee and Kate Miller-Heidke).
His music has always had strong support from Australian fans, too. There have also been personal relationships here, and he has performed 'Still Call Australia Home' reflecting the time he has spent living here.
I have seen Folds once before, at a festival in Japan – the amazing UDO Speedway Festival of 2006 - which followed on from the release of perhaps two of his best-known albums: 2001's 'Rockin' The Suburbs' and 2005's 'Songs For Silverman'.
His celebrated music goes further back than that, as part of Ben Folds Five. I clearly remember 1995's 'Underground' – a brilliant song, where the fantastic outro really shone a light on the strength of his piano playing and musical education.
'Brick' followed up a couple of years later, then Folds moved out on his own, releasing the two great aforementioned albums followed by a stream of other music, both studio and live.
Most music followers know that as an artist, he is not only an Emmy-nominated singer-songwriter. He is also a New York Times bestselling author, actor, photographer, multi-instrumentalist, arranger, artistic advisor – the list goes on!
Most recently, he again came to further international attention when he resigned from his prestigious role as Artistic Advisor to the National Symphony Orchestra in America, a protest step taken to protect the arts and artists amidst significant politically-driven changes at the (formerly-named and formerly-respected) Kennedy Center.
Ben Folds' touring partner for Australia is New Yorker, Lindsey Kraft. Kraft's background is acting and modelling, but in recent years she has moved to kick off a burgeoning music career, playing piano and singing; she's also in the process of completing a musical.
She studied for a semester in Sydney back in 2001, so the tie-in with Australia is complete for the evening. Kraft hit the sparse yet stunning stage – with only a piano and piano stool – at precisely 8pm, decked out in casual street wear, running shoes and a baseball cap.
Lindsey Kraft - image © Bill Prendergast
Those in the front row could make out a handwritten Post-it note with her set list, and I think that enhanced the casual feel of the set. Kraft spoke in a very jovial and candid manner with the crowd between songs, explaining her difficult family background as an introduction to 'Sam I Am'.
'Alice' was an early highlight of her set, as Kraft played fairly simple chords over her lovely vocals. Her voice and enunciation was extremely clear through her singing and all of her banter with the crowd, no doubt reflecting her acting background.
Some of the later music was taken from a musical she has written, to be performed shortly at Adelaide Fringe (featuring none other than Ben Folds on a range of instruments, as we hear later).
Prior to Kraft mentioning this, the music had clearly taken a shift towards something more theatrical. The final song of her set, 'Cardboard Boxes', is built around the idea of getting off the carousel – a phrase she mentioned a couple of times – and about new beginnings. Kraft engaged really well with the crowd, and they appreciated her set in return.
Folds entered the stage at 8:45pm for his 90-minute set. The music played for his entrance was the lovely song, 'One (Is the Loneliest Number)', performed by Three Dog Night, but made famous for many in the crowd by the beautiful John Farnham rendition.
Once seated at the piano, Folds opened with 'So There', before starting the first of many discussions with the audience.
In his first interaction, he wondered why the photographers needed to take so many photos of him; a fair question given he was playing seated at the piano, so he put on a couple of crazy poses winding up with a single-finger salute to the crowd while standing on his piano stool.
'The Last Polka' ensued, and at the end of this one, he engaged in a lengthy discussion around what it sounded like, 10cc or another (vaguely-famous) American musician he met in an elevator after a show.
Ben Folds - image © Bill Prendergast
Folds was really varying his playing at this stage, from some of the heavier playing for which he is renowned, to much lighter and jazzier piano at times drifting into something akin to the coda of 'Underground'.
'Effington' was up shortly after, and was really the first time for the evening where the crowd was almost screaming along with Folds, at similar volumes which certainly pleased him, and the song wound up with one of his famous piano chords that was basically a heavy slap on the keys.
There was some background discussion leading into 'What Matters Most' as to what drove the writing of the piece. It was a slower song, and personally his slower music is what resonates with me most and it was one of the highlights of the show.
'Learn To Live With What You Are' was another slower piece and was followed by my favourite for the evening, which we were told he wrote when living in Sydney after COVID caused mayhem for the Australian tour he was due to start within weeks.
Ben Folds - image © Bill Prendergast
The piece was 'Kristine From The 7th Grade', which approaches some of his best and most beautiful gentle music. This was definitely one of the crowd's favourites for the evening in a night where there was very strong appreciation and involvement in most of the music.
The studio version of 'Philosophy' contains a direct musical reference to Gershwin's 'Rhapsody In Blue', and he inserted the reference twice in tonight's version, the second time being much clearer to the listeners.
'Still Fighting It' had the crowd doing all the lyrics, and wound up with Folds as a silhouette at the piano. 'You Don't Know Me' was similar, in that there were whole stanzas where Folds stopped singing, with the task handed over to a very loud and engaged crowd.
'Landed' was another expected highlight, as were 'Zac And Sara' and 'Annie Waits', before he left the stage after an explosive version of Ben Folds Five piece, 'Army'.
The encore was yet another wild and early one, 'One Angry Dwarf And 200 Solemn Faces', before he wound up on the gentler and more sensitive 'The Luckiest Guy'.
Ben Folds - image © Bill Prendergast
This wasn't a young audience. Rather it was a group of fans who love Ben Folds and his music, and they spent the evening remembering the great times of their youth as he played through this music that has meant so much to so many.
I was perhaps slightly surprised the show didn't include more of his slower, quieter (and very beautiful) music, but some of that was no doubt due to the arrangement in some of these pieces ('Jesusland', 'Gracie', 'Give Judy My Notice' for instance) not being suited to a solo piano show.
I think that no one in the audience went home disappointed or could have wished for more from the show.
