Sydney Opera House Concert Hall, 6 September 2009

Man I’m so behind.  It’s been longer than a week since I saw Ben Folds at the Opera House and I still haven’t written about it (I’ve been a bit under the weather this last week, so I’ll blame it on that).

I don’t think people in the US or UK realise how lucky they are when it comes to the availability of live music.  Pick one of your favourite artists, go to their website and look at their touring schedule.  It’ll be fairly likely that they will be touring around the country, making a number of stops all around the place.  In Australia, you have to wait and wait and wait for bands to come out and when they do, the tickets usually cost a fortune and there are only a handful of dates.  I guess that’s probably because it costs a lot to tour in Australia because of the travel involved - even if you hired most of your equipment it would still cost a bomb. [Edit to add - though of all my favourite artists, Ben Folds and Ani diFranco do make an effort to tour Australia more often than most]

Anyway, I had been disappointed when I heard tickets announced for his Sydney shows, as I was seriously broke.  The gigs came and went and I heard they were wonderful.  And then, by some wonderful coincidence, on the same day, I happened to get paid for some unexpected work and Karen happened to tweet that Folds’ last Sydney concert would be by request.  I didn’t even pause to think about it or worry about finding someone to go with, I went to the SOH website and bought the ticket in a matter of clicks (internet shopping is dangerous for the likes of me). 

Unfortunately, the weekend of the show I was hit with the aforementioned sickness (still don’t know what it was).  I didn’t make it to church or, well, anything really.  But having slept all day I felt like I could just manage the gig.

There was a table set up in the Concert Hall foyer, with stacks of paper slips, pencils and a throng of people waiting to put their requests in.  I wrote down Jackson Cannery for Karen, then went and found my seat.  I was very close to the stage, in one of the side boxes, but I hadn’t thought about which way he’d be facing.  He had his back to our section, but it didn’t really matter because I could still see his hands on the keys!

The staging was simple, just a gleaming black Steinway, a cascade of warm lights and a table with a glass fishbowl on it.  When the house lights dimmed, a black-uniformed Opera House employee walked onstage carrying a large mail sack.  She paused behind the fish bowl, upended the sack, and poured a mountain of requests into it and all over the floor.  Folds emerged then, grinning and waving, looked at the pile of paper and said “Hmm.  We might be here for a while.”

He dipped his hand into the bowl.  “Now, I don’t know if this is one of mine.  Melissa Hughes has asked me to play...The Lucky Song.” The audience burst into laughter (poor Melissa Hughes) and then Folds flowed into the beautiful ballad, The Luckiest.

He then just played whatever request he picked out of the bowl at random, unless it was a repeat of one he’d already played (there were several requests for The Luckiest, for example).  He was funny and charming and it was like you were hanging out with a mate.  Well, an incredibly talented, egotistical and cheeky mate, but he was relaxed and friendly and had all of us hanging on every note and word.

Here’s what he played:

• The Luckiest
• Smoke
• Battle of who could care less
• Rocking the suburbs
• Underground
  He said, “Uh, this is going to be challenging cos there are actually three vocal parts to this, but...I’ll see what I can do.” The audience willingly and rowdily supplied all the incidental bits - my favourite was hearing someone from the choir stalls shout imperiously, “Hand me my nose ring!”
• Don’t change your plans
• Elton John’s Tiny dancer
• The Postal Service’s Such great heights
• Magic
• Rock this bitch
• Kylie from Connecticut
• Mr Jones parts 1 and 2
  Both parts were inspired by stories Folds read in newspapers that he found kind of sad and resonant.  Part 1 also involved the longest run on sentence he’d ever read in a paper, essentially the lyrics of what ended up as his very poignant song: “Fred Jones was worn out from caring for his often screaming and crying wife during the day, but he couldn’t sleep at night for fear that she, in a stupor from the drugs that never eased the pain, would set the house ablaze with a cigarette.” Someone had actually requested Mr Jones Part 3, and he said “Well that hasn’t been written yet.  Tell you what, I’ll play 1 and 2 and see what happens.” It was very funny, what he made up on the spot, basically a honky-tonk rag about Fred Jones, 95 and going strong, living out a very happy retirement in Florida.
• Hiroshima - Japanese version (he didn’t get through the entire song, but sang about half of it in Japanese)
• Emaline
• Bitches ain’t s**t
  His very funny slow ballad version of an explicit and ridiculous Dr Dre song.  He hesitated with this one, and said “Don’t you think that’s a little distasteful here, in the Opera House?  Do you promise to sing it louder than me?  Cos I don’t want the management and all the ghosts who’ve inhabited this room to come break my kneecaps.”
• Landed
• Not the same
  He finished with this one, his own personal request.  I think he really enjoys getting people to sing, and this audience wasn’t shy!  It was a great way to end the show.

Loved every moment.  As soon as it was over, I scurried away.  And just as I had the week before with Aimee Mann, I sang with Folds at the top of my lungs all the way home (and then promptly collapsed into bed).