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"..for your little minds to blow..."
Jun. 23rd, 2004 11:59 pmGuster + Rufus + Ben Folds = a most excellent concert. Hoo-wee! I'm just a bigger fan of that Ben Folds every time I see him...right, then. Don't know where that came from...aside from it being almost 3 a.m. and all.
Since plans with other people never quite materialized, I ended up going with some work-folk. Among the four of us, we had two huge Ben/ casual Guster fans, a huge Ben/ huge Guster fan, and a casual Ben/ casual Guster fan. None of us really counted ourselves as Rufus fans...and I have to admit, this concert did nothing to change my opinion. The man's got a nice enough voice, and doesn't seem too bad at the songwriting bit, but damn, does he put on a dull show: *sings at piano, walks to stool & sings with guitar, crosses back to piano; repeats*
Guster opened; the best part of their set was Jackie's running commentary. She's seen them something like 20 times, and shared all sorts of fun facts. They were kind of low-key, honestly, because the crowd wasn't giving them much to work with. Two things I saw that I've never seen before: 1) not one, but TWO killer banjo solos, and 2) the drummer rocking out over his conga drums.
( Guster triggers a stream-of-consciousness outpouring ) Yes. I enjoyed Guster.
Rufus, I pretty much already covered. ( Yet I proceed to discuss his set, regardless. )
My issue with Rufus? Too self-important. He's kind of the odd one out in this lineup, because the others seem to have such a great time performing, as well as a sense of humor about themselves, their songs, and just life in general. Rufus joined Ben for the cover of Wham's "Careless Whispers" ("Never gonna dance again..."), and just sounded like he always does (ie, kinda miserable). I don't think the boy can sing things ironically, unfortunately. He seems like he needs more snark in his life.
As I'm falling asleep writing this, and I need to be at work at 11 am, I'll cover the Ben later.
EDIT: ( The Ben )
Dude. If I were ever to start rabidly following a musician, Ben Folds would be it. I'm already considering going up to the Cleveland show Sunday night with Jackie (the scheduling manager for the movie theater, and my unofficial guru of all things related to indie rock and concert-going). Is this a bad plan? *shrugs* You tell me.
Since plans with other people never quite materialized, I ended up going with some work-folk. Among the four of us, we had two huge Ben/ casual Guster fans, a huge Ben/ huge Guster fan, and a casual Ben/ casual Guster fan. None of us really counted ourselves as Rufus fans...and I have to admit, this concert did nothing to change my opinion. The man's got a nice enough voice, and doesn't seem too bad at the songwriting bit, but damn, does he put on a dull show: *sings at piano, walks to stool & sings with guitar, crosses back to piano; repeats*
Guster opened; the best part of their set was Jackie's running commentary. She's seen them something like 20 times, and shared all sorts of fun facts. They were kind of low-key, honestly, because the crowd wasn't giving them much to work with. Two things I saw that I've never seen before: 1) not one, but TWO killer banjo solos, and 2) the drummer rocking out over his conga drums.
( Guster triggers a stream-of-consciousness outpouring ) Yes. I enjoyed Guster.
Rufus, I pretty much already covered. ( Yet I proceed to discuss his set, regardless. )
My issue with Rufus? Too self-important. He's kind of the odd one out in this lineup, because the others seem to have such a great time performing, as well as a sense of humor about themselves, their songs, and just life in general. Rufus joined Ben for the cover of Wham's "Careless Whispers" ("Never gonna dance again..."), and just sounded like he always does (ie, kinda miserable). I don't think the boy can sing things ironically, unfortunately. He seems like he needs more snark in his life.
As I'm falling asleep writing this, and I need to be at work at 11 am, I'll cover the Ben later.
EDIT: ( The Ben )
Dude. If I were ever to start rabidly following a musician, Ben Folds would be it. I'm already considering going up to the Cleveland show Sunday night with Jackie (the scheduling manager for the movie theater, and my unofficial guru of all things related to indie rock and concert-going). Is this a bad plan? *shrugs* You tell me.
