The W
June 7, 2009 - birthdaybritney.jpg
Views: 179002087
Main | FAQ | Search: Y! / G | Calendar | Color chart | Log in for more!
28.3.24 0817
The W - Music - SLCR #243: Ben Folds & yMusic (May 11, 2016)
This thread has 6 referrals leading to it
Register and log in to post!
Thread rated: 8.63
Pages: 1
(311 newer) Next thread | Previous thread
User
Post (2 total)
KJames199
Scrapple
Moderator








Since: 10.12.01
From: #yqr

Since last post: 226 days
Last activity: 7 days
#1 Posted on | Instant Rating: 8.63
Hello. I am back home after my week in Toronto. I went to many shows, and while I took many notes (usually on my iPad before bed), I somehow found that doing "anything else" was preferable to writing reviews while I was there. I was too busy hanging out with pals and doing touristy things and eating delicious foods and walking 120,000+ steps, if my Fitbit is to be believed. My legs and feet suggest that it is accurate. But now I am home and have been home for a week and it is time to knock these guys out so that they're done before the next shows come.

What generally happens with Toronto is I book a trip for one reason (in this case, a rash ticket purchase for a special Hawksley Workman show) and then other stuff magically happens to happen. In this case, I got an email from Ben Folds (well, presumably not directly from Ben Folds) announcing tour dates, and I thought "hey, wouldn't it be rad if he was playing Toronto when I'm there?" And this is where Jeff says "fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck youuuuuuuuuuuu."

In honesty, I hadn't booked my plane tickets yet. The original plan was to fly in on Thursday, fly home on Sunday. Folds' Wednesday show extended the trip a bit; I ultimately settled in Monday to Sunday, as Monday to Forever wasn't financially sustainable. I wish it was. So many shows! So many tasty foods! To think that I could also have gone to see Pearl Jam AND Sloan AND Ring of Honor wrestling AND a Canadaland taping and goodness knows what else. I can't tell what would happen if we moved to Toronto - would we either be busy and broke all the time? Or would the novelty wear off, resulting in us never leaving the house?

Hahahaha I said "house." As if we wouldn't be living in a refrigerator box. Toronto isn't cheap.

Anyway. After a day spent touring Casa Loma, eating a fancy burger, record store browsing, and taking one last spin through Honest Ed's, I took the subway back to meet up with my delightful hosts, Steve and Audrey. We took the train to a BBQ place for dinner, where I had a fried chicken sandwich, and it occurs to me that I ate chicken before all three concerts this week, so I can go back to making that a requirement for an official concert, until I forget or don't care or whatever.

From there, we were a short walk to the Danforth Music Hall. Steve used to work there, so I was seeing a vital part of Steve history. We got inside and I pined over the list of upcoming shows, particularly case/lang/veirs. Toronto, you get all the nice things. Like when we went into the hall proper, it had TWO bars; East Bar and West Bar. We debated drinking at both bars so as to sample the regional differences.

The opener was Dotan (and Mark), a Dutch singer making his first-ever appearance in Canada. It was a stripped-down set; he mentioned that normally he has a six-piece band, but on this day, there was Mark. Mark had a guitar. Dotan also had a guitar. It was a short set - about 30 minutes - but delightful. Dotan (and Mark) was touring in support of his record 7 Layers, and played us some tunes from it, including the title track, which he said was the most personal song he'd ever written. If I wrote a song with that title, it would be about having to pick the black olives off your nacho chips. That is why I am not a songwriter. That and my complete lack of musical aptitude. He closed with the song Home, which had a crowd singalong bit, which most everyone took part in. It was a very nice crowd, I thought - more on that in a second. But yeah, Dotan (and Mark) was a fine opener. Would see again.

So the crowd. Remember how I went to Sloan and everyone was shovy drunk dickheads? Well, everyone here was... nice. We had a drunk near us - there always has to be at least one - but even he was just really excited to see Ben Folds. Okay, so he accidentally smacked into someone. That wasn't great. But it seemed to me like it was out of musical enthusiasm and not just dickishness. So that's something. And at one point, he asked Audrey to hold his spot (so he could get another beer) (which he really did not need at this point), and there was no need - the space just didn't fill in. The vultures in Winnipeg would have trampled innocent bystanders for those few square feet of unoccupied floor. And I know vultures don't trample things, technically, but it is a METAPHOR. One that says that Toronto is lovely and Winnipeg is a dump.

I've only ever seen one Ben Folds solo show, but I've also been to a Ben Folds Five reunion concert, and I saw Ben twice Ben with the Edmonton Symphony. This show, with yMusic (and a drummer who was neither Ben Folds nor part of yMusic and thus was uncredited), was different still - somewhere between Ben Folds Five and a symphony show. yMusic is an orchestral six-piece from New York; Ben partnered with them for his last album, So There. Of course, they played almost all the pop songs from the album - seven out of eight - but didn't get into Ben's piano concerto, and they skipped the smutty musical pun F10-D-A.

After the show, the drummer handed out the performers' setlists, and I was lucky enough to get one. As such, I can give you the detailed breakdown of what they played, but be warned that this set list isn't quite right:

1. Beautiful Mechanical - yMusic
2. So There
3. Long Way To Go
4. Not A Fan
5. Effington
6. Yes Man
7. Phone In A Pool
8. Mess
9. Music In Circles - yMusic
10. I'm Not The Man
11. Erase Me
12. Song For The Dumped
13. Capable Of Anything
14. Steven's Last Night In Town
15. You Don't Know Me

Evaporated
Army
Not The Same

To start with, Evaporated was played earlier in the set, and Still Fighting It took its place as the first song of the encore. This worked out well - Audrey, who wasn't super familiar with Ben Folds going into the show, late said that Fighting was her favourite song of the evening.

Being a Ben Folds show, some of the changes were impromptu. Obviously, someone had to yell out for Rock This Bitch - this came fairly early on, I want to say it was after Effington. This particular version of Rock This Bitch (it's different every time) made reference to traveling from the West Bar where they serve Budweiser to the East Bar where they serve Budweiser. This was tremendous and made my night right there. He then went on to sing about crossing into Canada and getting the dreaded Canada-style cavity search at the border. The crowd loved it. "Encore!" yelled some guy (possibly the guy who had called for Rock This Bitch in the first place), so Ben immediately launched into another minute or two of the East Bar West Bar Cavity Search Rock This Bitch. Tremendous.

Later on, someone (and I really hope it was just the same guy over and over) yelled for Bitches Ain't Shit. "They don't know that one," said Ben, "but it's a special night so I think we can figure it out." I don't know if someone yells for this at every show (it's not the first time I've seen it happen), but Ben went through the motions of quickly teaching yMusic a few necessary chords before launching into the song - and then when it got to Snoop's verse, the drummer took over and nailed it. So there mayyyy have been some advance preparation, is what I'm saying.

Anyway. This show was great! I suppose that is unsurprising as I always think Folds' shows are great. The crowd seemed to love it. The whole thing was a big singalong, with the usual aaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAA during Not The Same and a slower version of Song for the Dumped being particular favourites. I thought the song of the night was a killer version of Steven's Last Night in Town. And each member of yMusic (and the drummer) had a chance to shine - the clarinet player, in particular, stole the show. I have never heard anyone (same guy again?!) yell "that was some badass clarinet!" at a rock show before but there is a first time for everything.

Goddamn laptop touchpad just made me delete like two paragraphs so I shut it off. Let that be a lesson to everything else in my life that irritates me. If I can figure out where your shut-off button is in the control panel, you're in for it.

Oh well, all that was left was the closing. After the show ended, we hung out a bit to let the crowd disperse, which gave me time to snag that setlist from the drummer. On our way out, Dotan (and Mark) was selling albums at the stuff table, so Audrey and I each bought one and got them signed. Nice guys. Handsome too. Before the show, Audrey put a picture of herself, Steve, and I on Facebook saying we were waiting for the show, and a friend in Edmonton - early SLCR favourite Spiky Tom - said he was jealous. I said he'd have an hour to make it to Toronto if he didn't mind kissing the opener. This, of course, was an autocorrect, but I think that maybe my iPhone might have been onto something. Siri, you've done worse.



Twitter | Instagram | WordPress | Tumblr
Promote this thread!
KJames199
Scrapple
Moderator








Since: 10.12.01
From: #yqr

Since last post: 226 days
Last activity: 7 days
#2 Posted on | Instant Rating: 8.63
Pictures!















Twitter | Instagram | WordPress | Tumblr
Thread rated: 8.63
Pages: 1
Thread ahead: Amazon.com MP3 Download Top 100 Bestsellers -- May 29, 2016
Next thread: SLCR #244: Danny Michel (May 12, 2016)
Previous thread: iTunes Top Downloads -- May 22, 2016
(311 newer) Next thread | Previous thread
It's one of those really really good days. I picked up a couple used CDs at the local music store that I've been meaning to get for a while. Green Day - Ker-plunk : Yes. I like Green Day.
- zhixel, Used CD Madness (2002)
Related threads: SLCR #242: George Thorogood & the Destroyers (April 29, 2016) - SLCR #241: Jason Collett & Zeus (April 19, 2016) - SLCR #240: Sloan (April 9, 2016) - More...
The W - Music - SLCR #243: Ben Folds & yMusic (May 11, 2016)Register and log in to post!

The W™ message board

ZimBoard
©2001-2024 Brothers Zim

This old hunk of junk rendered your page in 0.169 seconds.