Concert Review: Hammerstein Ballroom, New York City,
February, 20 1998

Sometimes perseverance really does pay off. Take, for example, the rags-to-not-quite-riches rise of Ben Folds, who, along with Robert Sledge and Darren Jessee, make up the band Ben Folds Five. For close to a decade, Folds has been chasing an elusive pop dream, with unsuccessful pit stops in Nashville, Michigan, London and New York.

In fact, Folds has become so accustomed to music biz rejection you'd wonder what kind of masochist he is to have stuck it out. Hey, but this story has a happy ending (well, middle, actually). "Brick," from Ben Folds Five's top-notch album Whatever And Ever Amen, has become a solid-gold hit, and after four years of reaching into each other's pockets, this Chapel Hill-based trio are overnight sensations.

In concert, all Ben Folds Five really want to do is mess with the system. They crossbreed punkish vigor and energy with jazzy improvisations, arena-rock theatrics and cheesy harmonies straight from the pages of the Partridge Family songbook. At one point Folds even threatened to drag twangy opening act, Robbie Fulks, back on stage to croon some Hank Williams' heartaches. (It didn't happen, incidentally.)

Ben Folds Five also know a great pop song when they write one. "Kate" was a stomping shout along, Folds pumping the keys like he was some reincarnated Wild West honky tonker, while Sledge and Jessee raucously chanted the one-word chorus. For "Steven's Last Night In Town," Folds moved center stage, dropping into a lengthy monologue before blasting away on the melodica (a wind-driven, hand-held keyboard) as the band locked into a swinging, big-band groove.

While Folds is every inch the piano virtuoso – whether sitting at, beating up or dry-humping his tool of trade – Sledge and Jessee eagerly kept pace. Sledge poured on the fat, fuzzy basslines and supersonic ad libs, while Jessee tore into his kit as if he were intent on pounding it into an early grave. Their live sound, accordingly, was ear-poppingly loud, which helped send the jam-packed, predominantly clean-cut-college-kid crowd into a frenzy of hip swiveling and toe tapping.

"Brick," by now their signature tune, was unlike everything else on the night's set list; they played it dead straight, Sledge scratching out a mournful elegy on his upright bass while Folds spilled the song's sad, sordid details of abortion and young love gone sour (which are true, too, if his statements about the tune are to be read as gospel).

Yet beneath Ben Folds Five's barnstorming melodies, savvy musical chops and Vegas-meets-Chapel-Hill showmanship lurks a rampant angst that may just be lost on their preppy acolytes. Folds' typically bitter putdowns – see "Song for the Dumped's" snarled "give me my money back you bitch" or the entire "Battle of Who Could Care Less" – carry enough venom to poison a small city. Clearly, the band goes beyond your ordinary love-song pop rockers in their lyrics and their message.

March 1998