Ben Folds LIVE

It was a long time coming (it's six months since Mr Folds should have graced these shores) but in the end, this was well and truly worth the wait. A last minute work committment meant that young Xavier could not join the party as planned, which meant that Caroline (or Deviate if you like) had the honour of being a part of the 50th ever concert that me and Gee have been to together. And apart from her swearing outburst at me whilst having a drink ( :D ) she was great company. And I suppose even me and Gee were preferable company for her to a weird looking American unappropriately dressed in unfashionable shorts.

Ben was on top form as he rattled through most of the highlights of his two solo albums (although on a couple of occasions there were too many "slow" songs following each other for my liking - a minor gripe I know, but hey...) with his band before settling down to his piano and playing requests. Some old Ben Folds Five favourites were pounded out (including Brick - which welled up tears in my eyes), the highlight of which was probably Army, complete with the conducted sing-a-long. Then the band came back out and they rattled out some more top quality tunes.

It's hard to fault this concert. At nearly two and a half non-stop hours of great tunes, who could ask for more. Most of the favourites were there (Landed, One Angry Dwarf, The Last Waltz, Where's Summer B?...man I could go on and on), and he'd have to play for seven or eight hours to do ALL the songs you would like to hear. Quite simply Ben Folds is a musical genius, and I simply can't wait until next time.