Ben Folds
Jones Hall
December 10, 2024
Houston’s home to NASA, so plenty of musicians have mentioned aeronautics when bringing their tours through the city. Few have commented on the subject the way Ben Folds did in concert last night, though. Folds observed that the city isn’t just filled with music lovers, but also folks who have some propensity for all things aviation. The proof was scattered at his feet, from left to right, across Jones Hall’s vast stage.
Folds is on a run dubbed the Paper Airplane Request Tour. Last night, the singer-songwriter-pianist performed 10 songs he selected to open his set, then took an intermission, which allowed the gathered to scribble their favorite Ben Folds songs onto sheets of paper provided by the venue. They then folded those sheets into their best facsimiles of paper planes to toss onto the stage. When he returned to play the second half of the set, Folds had plenty of requests to choose from, gems which stretched back to his days piloting his breakthrough band Ben Folds Five and more from his time flying solo.
We’d actually seen this in a previous installment at House of Blues back in 2017 and last night’s set, which was opened by Folds’ tourmate Lindsey Kraft, was sort of a mashup of that 2017 concert and one from last year. The appeal of the night wasn’t just hearing Folds’ songs all night – something we could do and have done as huge fans – but seeing how the sets differed seven years apart and with different audiences. The 2017 set at House of Blues was 21 songs long, bested by one last night. Last night’s set was practically all different material from that 2017 show. More than half the songs he played in the 2017 paper planes tour were replaced last night. As a fan of any particular artist, you’ve got to love hearing songs you’ve never before heard live. The Paper Airplane concept is just really cool in how it works that way.
The set was constructed so the first 10 songs were “his half,” with the remaining being our half. He started his half with “Still Fighting It,” one of his best compositions ever, a touching ode to growing up he wrote for his son more than 20 years ago. He followed with some Ben Folds Five tracks, favorites from his early 1990s outfit, the one that put Ben Folds on the map. We were especially pleased to hear “Selfless, Cold and Composed” among those. It’s got to rank as one of the most painful breakup songs ever thanks to the detached demeanor (it’s all right there in the title) of one half of the breakup. Getting to hear it live after seeing Folds a few times was a high mark. He’s played it hundreds of times but performing it alone in dim lighting on Jones Hall’s oversized stage magnified the solitude the song expresses.
Folds doesn’t need to talk with the audience to get the point of his songs across, but he seems to cherish the chance to visit with his fans. Every time we’ve seen him, he shares (or overshares) some personal aspects of his life. A few songs into last night’s set, he admitted he had to gather his composure after a tequila shot he took backstage “went down the wrong pipe.”
“I was coughing my brains out from tequila going down whatever the wrong pipe structure is,” he said to audience laughter. “I’m no doctor, but I assume one of them goes to your stomach and the other goes to your lungs, probably.”
He introduced “Fragile,” from 2023’s What Matters Most, by saying “I’m sure not everyone has that (album). It’s the truth,” he said as we sheepishly chuckled. “If it was an older era maybe, before things got dumb, it maybe would have been a hit. But I can think that all I want to, it wasn’t. Here’s the song.”
When he’s visited in the past, Folds has always shared a Houston-centric story from his long career. This time around, he told how he wanted to amplify his piano so he wouldn’t have to perform on digitized keys.
“When I started, I’d written a lot of songs and I wanted to play them, obviously, for people,” he began. “But I played piano and you know, in the early ‘90s, good luck. There were electric pianos and I tried those. I tried the big hunk o’ shit thing, the Yamaha CP70 thing, which is an interesting sound, but absolutely horrible for expressing yourself at the piano and singing.”
His quest to deliver true piano to the masses led him to Houston and one Charlie Helpinstill, who’d created the Helpinstill pickup, which amplifies upright and grand pianos for concert settings. Folds rambled on about the importance of this find, how he’d first nabbed them as used items from a Nashville bookstore and how it allowed for the sound he wanted and apologized if the subject was too boring and ended with, “there’s no real moral or end to this story, but when those pickups – because they were really old – started shorting out and shitting the bed, we got in touch with the guy who makes these things and his name’s Charlie Helpinstill and he’s here tonight.” Houston music lovers know Helpinstill as the original “Beaumont boy,” Ezra Charles.
And so it went, with Folds banging out perfectly amplified music, the way he intended it to be heard, for his legion of fans, folks who’ve followed him from his earliest days to now. Maybe we’re not all smart enough to create a piano pickup or even fold a paper plane properly, but we’re keen enough to fly towards solid, meaningful songwriting and we all enjoyed hearing it last night.
The Opener: Singer-songwriter-actress Lindsey Kraft opened the set with songs from a musical she’s workshopping. We first caught Kraft when Folds visited Bayou Music Center last October. Her songs gave the night a night on Broadway vibe so they played especially well in Jones Hall, where her fully-realized project – titled love, me – could someday debut.
The set is filled with autobiographical songs and focus on a few particular men in her life, who she references as “O,” “Guitar Hero,” and “Sam I Am.” As she works through the songs, a tale unfolds in acts, so her set is constructed like a highly entertaining, very satisfying, one-woman mini-musical. (Folds did join her for a song and she returned the favor during his set). Since we’ve now seen how polished the set’s become, we’re super eager to see her give it life as a proper musical some day or at least hold out for a recorded album of the funny, tender, deeply personal songs.
Personal Bias: Mrs. Sendejas, my constant concert companion, loves anyone who can play piano and sing songs. Maybe her fascination hearkens back to her grade school days when she was earnestly learning to play “O Holy Night” for her own moment center stage at her first piano recital. Or, maybe it’s because her first-ever live show was Billy Joel playing songs from An Innocent Man at The Summit (she’s seen him live 11 times in all). So, she’s a fan of everyone from Elton John (whose music she heard last night when Folds covered “Tiny Dancer” for a plane-tosser) to Regina Spektor (whose parts she sang during Folds’ encore song, “You Don’t Know Me,” a track from 2008’s Way to Normal which featured Spektor). But last night, she admitted she might love Ben Folds more than any of them.
I’ve got to say, what’s not to love? He’s created a catalog of incredible music and is one of the best pianists we’ve ever seen live, though every time we’ve seen him he’s self-deprecating about his playing, particularly if he’s mentioning people like Elton John or Billy Joel. He’s also engaging and funny in concert. We’ve never seen him do scripted bits in his shows, he’s always genuine about the music he’s created and seems genuinely interested in the places those songs inhabit in our lives. For Mrs. Sendejas and me, the ones that take special places are “Still Fighting It” and “Gracie,” (because we have a son and a daughter) and “The Luckiest,” which perfectly and poetically sums up a lifetime of commitment in fewer than five minutes.
So, if she’s crushing a little, I get it. I’m not a jealous guy, more a “Sentimental Guy,” another song Folds played to our delight.
The Crowd: The genteel confines of Jones Hall kept them rather reserved for most of the night, so Folds had to work to get them to sing along. He’d half-stand off the piano bench and lean towards the audience to get them to chime in for songs like “Annie Waits” or cup his right ear, the one the audience could see from his playing position, when he wanted vocal accompaniment. They came around for the set closer and sang Regina’s parts with gusto.
Random Notebook Dump: Many, many thanks to everyone at Jones Hall for such an excellent experience. Rock concerts in this theater maybe are few and far between, and maybe they don’t bring out the mosh pits, but the evening was a delight, particularly since it lent itself so well to Kraft’s theatrical set and Folds’ introspective monologues. Special thanks to some Performing Arts Houston superstars – Caroline, Jordan, Lee and Shaun – who made a great night even greater. Y’all check the web page for more cool events they’re bringing for your entertainment and get out there soon to enjoy downtown’s holiday lights.
Ben Folds Set List
Still Fighting It
Capable of Anything
Don’t Change Your Plans
Selfless, Cold and Composed
Sentimental Guy
Fragile
Kristine From the 7th Grade
Effington
We Could Have This (featuring Lindsey Kraft)
Annie Waits
Paper Planes Set List:
Landed
Brick
Hold That Thought
Song for the Dumped
The Luckiest
Emaline
Zak and Sara
Tiny Dancer (Elton John cover)
Still
Gracie
Army
Encore:
You Don’t Know Me
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024.
