Ben Folds Five started a new leg of their unlikely reunion tour at Denver’s Ogden Theatre Wednesday, bringing out a varied crowd of fans on a school night.
The band (actually a threesome) introduced their self-proclaimed brand of “punk rock for sissies” in the mid-‘90s and had a catchy (if depressing) radio hit with “Brick” by 1998. The group broke up for more than a decade before gradually reforming and hitting the road in 2012. After all of which, one would expect them to be a bit rusty.
But BFF were as technically savvy and steeped in classical (and many other) demanding musical styles as ever. Folds, one of those artists who seems incapable of going a moment without creating something, hammered his piano from a standing position while uttering thoughts such as “I always like to do one waltz” almost to himself.
In fact, Folds is so talented and clever that his existing songs seemed to be holding him back from following the ideas that were occurring to him moment by moment. A ditty about the Denver show he was currently playing turned into a meditation on marijuana legalization, and then a round of oddball jokes, all apparently off the top of his head. Folds is the kind of guy you want to see follow a setlist.
He’s the kind of guy you want to watch playing free jazz.
Comments