Ben Folds

I have come to realize as of last that I do indeed have some non-sexual man-crushes; being an English major, my main man-crushes tend to be TS Eliot and James Joyce. I mean, by contrast, I respect Brad Pitt as an actor, and even defend Tom Cruise (as a thesbian, not as a human being) for Jerry Maguire, Mission Impossible, and War of the Worlds, but I go just ga-ga for The Waste Land and Dubliners. I'm positively giddy to re-read Ulysses later this summer. Given how nerdy my man-crushes are, it's only fitting that Ben Folds would also figure into one of my man-crushes.

I saw him perform the other night at Deer Valley Outdoor Amphitheater up in Park City; he performed with the Utah Symphony, and I can say it was easily the highlight of the week, more than made up for losing a Paul McCartney ticket to a coin-toss, and I'm almost afraid my summer has no where to go but down now.

It got off to a rick-rollicking start with Zac and Sara; he would lean heavily on his solo stuff (though Narcolepsy was the grand finale, before the naturaly encore of The Luckiest, the closest he's gotten to another bona fide hit, and with good reason) (I could also have used more Reinhold Meissner in his set, but that is but one quibbling complaint of a gorgeous show), and even gutsily debuted a couple new songs he'd been working on (including a hilarious Levi Johnson Blues) at an orchestral concert that one would have expected to be an over-view of his classic work. Vintage Ben Folds, only he could have gotten away with it.

Brick is of course his one big hit, though it quickly grew repetitive and annoying; it does not have great replay value, and if it weren't for the fact that Brick is an aberration to his oeuvre, I never would have gotten into him. But given it's his one legit "main-stream" radio hit (whatever that's worth), I just braced myself for its inevitable performance. But I must say that the dissonant violins from the Utah symphony redeemed the song, and made me enjoy it again.

Ben Folds is famous for inviting audience participation, but I was curious as to how he could pull that off with a symphony orchestra and a large out-door venue. I shouldst not hath lacked faith; he had all thousand-odd of us "ah"-ing the three-part harmonys to "Not the Same," a song I love to death to begin with (I have mission memories of it!), which easily was the highlight of the night for me! Folds was clearly enjoying himself to.

Best stage banter: "I see some folks in the condos are watching from their porches. We'll wrap things up here so that you crank back up the Jimmy Buffet."

And all this not to mention that the temperature was perfect, the view of the rolling hills breath-taking, and the symphony dazzling. Please excuse my total Ben Folds geek-out!