If you want to see one of Gen-X’s most creative minds at work, go to a Ben Folds show.
Folds has slowly, teasingly peeled back the layers of his brilliance in the decades since we first got to know him with the Ben Folds Five in the late ’90s. The same man who shouted about wanting to be “Kate” on alternative radio back then has mined his life and observations to develop his songwriting and grow his career in unexpected ways.
Sure, Folds has collaborated with notable musicians such as Sara Bareilles, Regina Spektor and Weird Al Yankovic. As a producer, he’s even teased an album out of William Shatner that you can fully and unironically enjoy.
But Folds’ real skill is his writing, popping out not only lyrics that tell colorful, complete stories, but also arrangements of dozens of instruments, most of which he can play himself. Folds has an ear for hearing something inconsequential — a goofy word, chair legs scraping across a wooden floor — and spontaneously building rich songs of all genres around it. He frequently demonstrates this during his live shows, when he asks an audience member for a topic or takes over an instrument from a fellow musician.
That’s why over the past decade or so, Folds’ marriage to major symphony orchestras around the globe has been such a joy to experience. What began as an interesting concept blossomed into something wondrous that had audiophiles listening to Classical musicians in new ways, no matter if Folds and the symphony were performing his old ’90s Slacker-Punk stuff or his newer, moving concertos.
Folds possesses a Jedi-like ability to write parts for 25 instruments, intuitively blend them into perfect melodies and harmonies, and have 100 high-caliber musicians perform them with incredible texture, all within about two minutes on stage. The process appears (and is) instantaneous, but that’s only because Folds has developed the serious skills required to pull it off flawlessly. It’s a sonic magic trick that leaves you wondering what in the hell you just witnessed while giving you a “I was there when he did that” moment to point to later.
When Folds takes the stage at the Taft Theatre on Nov. 18, he’ll do so just days after performing at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., where he has served since 2017 as the National Symphony Orchestra’s first artistic advisor. The show in Cincinnati will be solo — his first in town since 2019, those pre-pandemic times — but Folds surely will bring with him all of the cultural influences he’s amassed over nearly 30 years.
Doors open at 6:30 p.m., with the show beginning at 7. All attendees must be fully vaccinated from COVID-19 (at least two weeks after the final immunization) and must wear a mask inside the venue at all times.
This article appears in Nov 10-23, 2021.