By Jeanine Budd
If people say that Ben Folds “brought down the house” last night, they’re not lying. During the alternative rock artist’s 18-song set, an audience member close to the front could see small pieces of the ceiling falling to the stage, something seemingly unnoticed by Folds.
“I think we were just dusting off the rafters,” said Shawn Wolfgang, the alumni chair for Kappa Sigma, who put on last night’s show. “Not too many exciting things have happened in Blackman lately.”
The show stayed true to the words of the ad released by Kappa Sigma and began promptly at 8 p.m. with a performance from Eef Barzelay in front of a half-filled Blackman Auditorium. Barzelay, a comedic solo act from Nashville who describes himself as “soul” on his website, replaced Your Prom Date, an indie rock group from Chicago who was originally scheduled as the opening act.
Barzelay’s sporadic body movements, alongside lyrics like: “You look so pretty when you have been drinking / you laugh at all my jokes,” and “that was my ass you saw bouncing next to Ludacris,” drew laughter from the audience, even if at times the response seemed to be confusion.
Just as promised, Folds was on stage by 9 p.m. He began the night with the song “Effington,” and followed with “Gone,” during which the sitting (and now full) crowd was prompted to stand, and everyone rose to their feet, clapping and singing along.
“My favorite song that he played was ‘Army,’ because it’s
the song that started me off on him, but the whole show was a lot of good music,” said Mike Brown, a sophomore civil engineering major. “I had a lot of fun.”
Folds didn’t have to make much effort to inspire crowd participation during last night’s set. In between songs, crowd members would shout out songs to sing and echo back the lyrics if he chose to take a breather for a couple of lines occasionally.
At the end of the night, Folds turned to the audience and directed them in a chorus of “ba da ba ba” during the song “Army,” before ending with “Rockin’ the Suburbs.”
At many shows, Folds has to teach the audience parts before the song, but this college crowd didn’t need such introductions.
“I really love it when he had everyone sing along in unison,” said Nathan Pierce, a sophomore political science major at Emmanuel College. “By now though, all of his fans know exactly what to do.”
Of course, it was clear at the close of the concert that the show wasn’t over. With the crowd much louder than when Folds took the stage, many of them standing, screaming and pounding on seats, he re-entered for an encore, which included the Ben Folds Five song, “Underground.”
“I’ve seen him before at a bigger venue,” said Bianca Pier, a sophomore biology major from Siena College who attended last night’s show. “I really liked the small venue. And it was also really funny that you could see dust falling from the ceiling. We’ll just say that’s from the talent.”
After last night, Folds will be back in the studio for three weeks, wrapping up the recording of a new album, Wolfgang said.
Mike McDuffe, a freshman industrial design major at Wentworth Institute of Technology, had a message for anyone who didn’t attend the concert.
“For these people who missed last night’s show, I’m just going to tell them: regret,” he said.
