While James and I took our seats for the recent A-Ha gig that we went to, we had a look through the upcoming events list on the NEC Group flyer on the seats, and noted that the Ben Folds gig would be well worth going along to... imagine my surprise when I managed to win a pair of tickets to the gig, thanks to the Vic McGlynn show on BBC 6Music! This would now become the last gig we'd go to pre-baby.
So, last Monday we dashed home after work, grabbed some food from the Birmingham Christmas Markets, and headed over to the NIA for the gig. The seats we had were great - there was some standing room at the front, and we were seated a few rows back on the tiered seating, directly in front of the stage (note that seating is essential when attending a gig when you're over 7 months pregnant!). The support band played their song over and over with a variety of lyrics - the most amusing was to do with the fact that their local swimming pool where they grew up had a wave machine! Dude! The Strokes have a lot to answer to - these guys were trying hard, and this was their biggest ever audience, but they do need to get a bit more variety in their music. Mr Bump wriggled quite a lot - not sure if he was enjoying it or not!
Anyway, Mr Folds eventually took the stage, and announced that his drummer had food poisoning, so it would be just him on his own for most of the gig - and he did a fabulous job of coping with that situation! The audience joined in on many of the tracks, and although there wasn't much animation in the standing crowd, there was a lot of appreciation going on.
One of the many highlights of the show was Ben managing to "break" his piano (one key was playing up and buzzing), so the piano-tuning roadie had to run on stage to help fix the problem. While this was happening, Ben delighted the crowd with a quick 'n funky slappy bass solo, followed by a frantic drum solo to pass the time, before heading back to the freshly-fixed piano to continue the set. And it was a fabulous set - he was on stage for almost two hours, and the time just flew by!
There are some guys out there who write songs who genuinely deserve the title of "artist" - Ben Folds really is a talented artist, who managed to juggle playing the piano, singing, entertaining and involving the audience and even playing all the instruments like a true professional. It was a great gig, and a fabulous experience. Big thanks to 6Music for the tickets!
A final note - the main reason for winning the tickets came from the recent collaboration between Ben Folds and William Shatner, on Bill's latest album "Has Been". It may sound corny, but it's a wonderful album, full of deeply personal songs, mixed with some hilarious numbers, and it works so well as an album thanks to Ben's great musical talent combined with Bill's unique style. Anyway, I won the tickets due largely to my geek tendancies with a Star Trek themed question - I always knew those skills would come in handy one day.