BEN FOLDS and yMUSIC
QPAC Concert Hall (Brisbane) 18.08.2016
Ben Folds knows that one of the secrets to creating new music, while maintaining your audience, and possibly expanding it, is to be daring enough to change your sonic backdrop every once and a while. Tonight Folds does this with the aid of Brooklyn based brass and string ensemble yMusic. The collaboration led to the release of the 2015 album So There. Australia is the final stop for Folds and the troupe on their current world tour to promote the work.
The singer/songwriter has never been short on new ways of exploring the ritual of performance. Playing to a capacity house, Folds spends ninety-nine percent of the night centre stage behind an upright piano, with the six piece yMusic forming an arc around him. Folds’ latest efforts are a hybrid – mixing classic pop and modern chamber music. Sam Smith on drums brings a hint of rock and roll urgency to proceedings while the arrangements are fleshed out by yMusic who lend a certain classism to proceedings: albeit a classism that doesn’t take itself too seriously.
yMusic began the night with an instrumental, Beautiful Mechanical. Folds, still putting on his jacket, bounds on stage and the group perform So There’s title track. The opening gambit is a trio of new songs including Capable of Anything and Not A Fan.
Effington was the first sing-a-long of the night. Always rousing, the song illustrates not only Folds gift for melody but his brilliant deadpan skills as a satirist. Still Fighting It, from 2001’s Rocking The Suburbs, was met with similar glee from the audience.
Mid-show yMusic had another opportunity to display their chops, sans Folds, with Music In Circles. Folds returned to centre stage with a new tune, I’m Not The Man. Folds, a one time Adelaide resident, had the full house in stitches as he discussed his early days in Australia and the months he spent trying to decipher an inadvertent one-liner he heard while passing a building site. (We won’t give away the punch line here). Similar hilarity ensued as he discussed the before and after effects of meeting his boyhood boxing idol Sugar Ray Leonard.
The final furlong included a breathtaking reading of The Last Polka – which showcased the cinematic sweep of what yMusic bring. The singer finally leapt over the piano in a manner that would make Jerry Lee Lewis proud for a routine that demands audience participation. A fine night with exemplary playing and wonderful new songs, a couple of extra ‘hits’ would have been nice – but that’s a small price to pay when you’re in the company of one of the great modern songwriters and an equally impressive ensemble behind him.
Sean Sennett
