Who: Ben Folds File with Nataly Dawn
When: January 31, 2013
Where: The Warfield Theater/ San Francisco, CA
With: my unbridled hope for an awesome west coast life
Of Note: 2001 Jen is SO PUMPED to be here
After putting it off for a considerable amount of time, I had to finally get serious about moving to San Francisco, so I arranged to spend a week in the city to do it. Finding an apartment in San Francisco is an enormous pain the neck, in general. I managed to get lucky and rent one of the first two places I looked at and had the whole process wrapped up by Wednesday. To celebrate, I decided I wanted to do something fun Thursday night - it was either Ben Folds Five or 'Anything Goes'. I opted for Ben Folds and am glad I did!
The opener was Nataly Dawn, who I had not heard of, but who was really good! She had a total folk/indie vibe, a dress that I loved the lace top of, and a blonde pixie haircut that made her look like my favorite gym class instructor Angie. She played with a whole band full of boys and had great stage presence; I really liked her voice. She played one number on her own and when the rest of the band left, she noted that, "You know that shit's getting real when people leave the stage!" She did a really, really pretty cover of Coldplay's 'Green Eyes'. Overall, she was a great opener. She's since put out an album, which I would encourage you to Spotify.
Ben Folds Five is one of those bands that takes me back to a very specific place, namely my freshman year of college. My roommate Liz briefly saw a guy, Greg, and I burned all his Ben Folds Five CDs. Many of the tracks from 'Naked Baby Photos' and 'Whatever and Ever Amen' made it on to my college mix CDs and I'm pretty sure I can sing along with those albums in their entirety. I mean, I knew 'Brick' in high school (everyone did) (and, man, what a gut-wrenching song), but it wasn't until college that I really "got" Ben Folds Five.
As for Ben Folds himself? He is my very favorite reality TV judge ever, appearing on my very favorite reality singing competition ever, 'The Sing Off'. He was smart, articulate, provided tremendous insight...the list goes on. I could actually just listen to Ben Folds talk about nerdy music things for hours. That could have been the whole concert - he could have just sat in front of the piano and talked about arpeggios and I probably would have been just as happy. Plus, he's just a big supporter of the a cappella genre, and we all know how I feel about that.
Anyway, Ben Folds was awesome. He was dressed like a hipster soccer dad, cursed like a sailor, played rock piano like Jerry Lee Lewis (kicking over stools and everything!), sat regally to play classical piano like Beethoven, told funny stories like Jimmy Fallon, AND rocked your face off. Like, dude, lay off the myriad of talents; you're making the rest of us feel badly.
The set was a great mix of old stuff I knew and loved and new stuff from 'The Sound Of The Life And the Mind' which I had obsessively Spotify-ed that day. I really liked 'Erase Me' off the new album; it starts out all smooth and dark and moody and then gets forceful and percussive. The contrast is great and I enjoyed the rhythm on the chorus. I was so excited to hear 'Jackson Cannery', 'Battle of Who Could Care Less', and 'Philosophy'. 'Brick' was just as gut-wrenching live. 'Kate' was fun and saucy. I thought that the drum transitions from swing to rock back to swing and back to rock again in many of the songs was so cool; you could tell they'd all been playing together forever because the set was so tight. The set closed with a raucousing 'Song For the Dumped' and the crowd went nuts.
The encore of 'Underground' and 'One Angry Dwarf' was also pretty intense; the crowd was really into the back to back fan favorites and I was super pumped to hear 'Underground'. Oh! 'Army' had an epic crowd sing along (because we all know how we're supposed to divide ourselves up and sing along with that one, clearly), and we all know how much I love a good crowd sing along.
Maybe even better than the music though (well, okay, not really better than, but definitely an augment to), were the stories and jokes Ben told. Here are a few of my favorites:
Before 'Army', he recounted the sad tale of writing the song. Essentially, he lost his music scholarship (percussion) because he got an F on his juries because he had a broken hand and stitches in his eye because he got his ass kicked the night before because he was defending his roommate who was a jackass. As a result, he threw his drums into the lake at his college. He thought about going ROTC to get a scholarship, and so the song 'Army'. He concluded the story with, "Some of that is bullshit."
"That last song was in F#. Some people like to call in Gb but we know that's bullshit. We're a nation divided." That cracked me right the eff up. Seriously, music nerd humor is the best.
Before one of the new songs, he asked the crowd to quiet down, presumably so the band could get the intro right. As with most concerts, there kept being that one guy who would yell something right after silence had been achieved. Ben pulled back from the piano and noted how the band was going without a count-off on this one and, "It takes a lot of concentration to read someone's mind. I need silence. And I've got all night."
He told a story about how he was lucky enough to travel with a variety of orchestras. He then noted that in contrast to most other types of music, orchestras don't get a count off, they just get a downbeat and go. "If you're a rock or jazz musician playing with them, it takes a couple bars to catch up." Hilarious and mostly true.
Anyway, this was a great concert to celebrate my triumphant transition to west coast dweller. Equal parts nostalgia, hilarity and really good music.
.JPG)
When: January 31, 2013
Where: The Warfield Theater/ San Francisco, CA
With: my unbridled hope for an awesome west coast life
Of Note: 2001 Jen is SO PUMPED to be here
After putting it off for a considerable amount of time, I had to finally get serious about moving to San Francisco, so I arranged to spend a week in the city to do it. Finding an apartment in San Francisco is an enormous pain the neck, in general. I managed to get lucky and rent one of the first two places I looked at and had the whole process wrapped up by Wednesday. To celebrate, I decided I wanted to do something fun Thursday night - it was either Ben Folds Five or 'Anything Goes'. I opted for Ben Folds and am glad I did!
The opener was Nataly Dawn, who I had not heard of, but who was really good! She had a total folk/indie vibe, a dress that I loved the lace top of, and a blonde pixie haircut that made her look like my favorite gym class instructor Angie. She played with a whole band full of boys and had great stage presence; I really liked her voice. She played one number on her own and when the rest of the band left, she noted that, "You know that shit's getting real when people leave the stage!" She did a really, really pretty cover of Coldplay's 'Green Eyes'. Overall, she was a great opener. She's since put out an album, which I would encourage you to Spotify.
Ben Folds Five is one of those bands that takes me back to a very specific place, namely my freshman year of college. My roommate Liz briefly saw a guy, Greg, and I burned all his Ben Folds Five CDs. Many of the tracks from 'Naked Baby Photos' and 'Whatever and Ever Amen' made it on to my college mix CDs and I'm pretty sure I can sing along with those albums in their entirety. I mean, I knew 'Brick' in high school (everyone did) (and, man, what a gut-wrenching song), but it wasn't until college that I really "got" Ben Folds Five.
As for Ben Folds himself? He is my very favorite reality TV judge ever, appearing on my very favorite reality singing competition ever, 'The Sing Off'. He was smart, articulate, provided tremendous insight...the list goes on. I could actually just listen to Ben Folds talk about nerdy music things for hours. That could have been the whole concert - he could have just sat in front of the piano and talked about arpeggios and I probably would have been just as happy. Plus, he's just a big supporter of the a cappella genre, and we all know how I feel about that.
Anyway, Ben Folds was awesome. He was dressed like a hipster soccer dad, cursed like a sailor, played rock piano like Jerry Lee Lewis (kicking over stools and everything!), sat regally to play classical piano like Beethoven, told funny stories like Jimmy Fallon, AND rocked your face off. Like, dude, lay off the myriad of talents; you're making the rest of us feel badly.
The set was a great mix of old stuff I knew and loved and new stuff from 'The Sound Of The Life And the Mind' which I had obsessively Spotify-ed that day. I really liked 'Erase Me' off the new album; it starts out all smooth and dark and moody and then gets forceful and percussive. The contrast is great and I enjoyed the rhythm on the chorus. I was so excited to hear 'Jackson Cannery', 'Battle of Who Could Care Less', and 'Philosophy'. 'Brick' was just as gut-wrenching live. 'Kate' was fun and saucy. I thought that the drum transitions from swing to rock back to swing and back to rock again in many of the songs was so cool; you could tell they'd all been playing together forever because the set was so tight. The set closed with a raucousing 'Song For the Dumped' and the crowd went nuts.
The encore of 'Underground' and 'One Angry Dwarf' was also pretty intense; the crowd was really into the back to back fan favorites and I was super pumped to hear 'Underground'. Oh! 'Army' had an epic crowd sing along (because we all know how we're supposed to divide ourselves up and sing along with that one, clearly), and we all know how much I love a good crowd sing along.
Maybe even better than the music though (well, okay, not really better than, but definitely an augment to), were the stories and jokes Ben told. Here are a few of my favorites:
Before 'Army', he recounted the sad tale of writing the song. Essentially, he lost his music scholarship (percussion) because he got an F on his juries because he had a broken hand and stitches in his eye because he got his ass kicked the night before because he was defending his roommate who was a jackass. As a result, he threw his drums into the lake at his college. He thought about going ROTC to get a scholarship, and so the song 'Army'. He concluded the story with, "Some of that is bullshit."
"That last song was in F#. Some people like to call in Gb but we know that's bullshit. We're a nation divided." That cracked me right the eff up. Seriously, music nerd humor is the best.
Before one of the new songs, he asked the crowd to quiet down, presumably so the band could get the intro right. As with most concerts, there kept being that one guy who would yell something right after silence had been achieved. Ben pulled back from the piano and noted how the band was going without a count-off on this one and, "It takes a lot of concentration to read someone's mind. I need silence. And I've got all night."
He told a story about how he was lucky enough to travel with a variety of orchestras. He then noted that in contrast to most other types of music, orchestras don't get a count off, they just get a downbeat and go. "If you're a rock or jazz musician playing with them, it takes a couple bars to catch up." Hilarious and mostly true.
Anyway, this was a great concert to celebrate my triumphant transition to west coast dweller. Equal parts nostalgia, hilarity and really good music.
.JPG)
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