We Can Be Happy
I see that there is evil, and I know that there is good
And the in-betweens I never understood.
Ben Folds Five! Together as a full band for the first time since I was in high school!
Venue
Central Park. I don't think I'd been there since…the Decemberists circa The Crane Wife? That could be a lie. I like Katie's assertion-we go to Prospect Park, end of story. There's absolutely nothing wrong with Central Park's Summerstage, it just isn't ours.
Opening Act
Kate Miller-Heidke. Even though we got into the venue by 6:30, we somehow missed her completely. Sorry, Kate! That wasn't intentional at all. This thing just happened insanely early-a theme for the entire evening.
OPQ (Old-Person Quotient)
Almost off the charts! The concert was done by *8:45*. I don't know if I've ever been out of a show that early-maybe that one Liz Phair show at Joe's Pub, but we were actually confused by how early it let out. And we missed the opening band, which is good for OPQ. The only thing that lowered it a little was that it was a standing show, but it was over with so early it wasn't really murder on the old knees.
Seats/Position in Crowd/Up-In-Itness
Not very. I forget how big that Central Park venue is. We were off to the side, and towards the back. Ben just looked like a little head obscured by a piano.
Setlist
Jesse will post at some point. [ETA: He did.] Until then, there is Last.fm. It boiled down to five songs each from the self-titled, Whatever and Ever Amen, and The Sound of the Life of the Mind (the new one), plus two from Reinhold Messner and "Emaline." So that's a pretty even split (except my beloved Reinhold Messner gets the shaft-I would've loved to have heard "Magic"). So it's not that I wanted the songs to be spread out differently, it's that I wanted to hear more songs from every album. Plus, there were zero Ben Folds solo songs, which is completely understandable, but I think some of his solo songs would sound great as Ben Folds Five songs, especially "Not the Same."
High Point
Oddly enough, those two songs from Reinhold Messner happened to have my favorite moments from the show. First, I was just psyched to hear "Mess" at all, since I love that song and I could see them skipping it because it isn't really a big crowd-pleaser. But "Army" was even better, because the crowd just sort of sang the horn parts on their own. They didn't have to be taught the parts and they didn't have to be split into sections. People just launched into it, divided equally among themselves. It was pretty awesome. Plus, going into "Army" from "Philosophy" was pretty amazing, and people were really into it. The set was back-loaded with heavy hitters.
Low Point
Ben Folds crowds are always bro-ish, and they would talk pretty loudly during the songs they weren't interested in (aka anything not from the first two albums), so that's pretty annoying. Also, you could tell that this was one of their first concerts since reuniting. They're not entirely tight yet.
Exuberance
Medium. Katie said that the entire crowd was our age plus or minus five years, but I'd say it was more like plus ten years, minus five years. We're all getting pretty old. But everyone perked up from "Philosophy" onward, so it ended on an exuberant note.
Up next: David Byrne/St. Vincent in Williamsburg Park, followed by Dum Dum Girls at the Europa, for Jesse's birthday weekend.