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Ben Folds and a piano

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Also by Danielle Chase:

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Unexpectedly, Ben Folds broke three piano strings within the first five minutes of his show, setting the stage for a night full of surprises. Folds opened the show with “Don’t Change Your Plans,” a sad ballad about parting ways, but then plucked the keys faster with “Zak and Sara” off his solo debut album Rockin’ the Suburbs.

Throughout the course of the show, Folds entertained the crowd with his hilariously offbeat stories, his amusing philosophy about people with tattoos and his willingness to take requests from the fans.

Perhaps the most “intimate” moment of the evening centered around Folds’s rendition of George Michael’s “Careless Whisper” when he achingly belted out “We could have been so good together/ We could have lived this dance forever / But now who’s gonna dance this dance with me? / Please dance.” The crowd spilled into a splendid laughter that only Folds’ sappiness can bring forth.

Folds let the audience in on all of his secrets surrounding the rumors about the lyrics in the song “Army.” He confessed to never having had a mullet and never working at Chic-Fil-A. However, he did have a moustache, and although he did not work at Chick-Fil-A, he did have a job at Hardee’s at one point in his career.

By the end of the show, Folds had taken the audience on a rickety, fun piano ride with the perfect combination of old and new songs such as “Mess,” “Not the Same,” “Jackson Cannery,” “Evaporated,” “One Angry Dwarf Fan and 200 Solemn Faces,” “Silver Streets,” “Annie Waits” and the essential “Philosophy.”

Folds closed with a theatrically slow and painfully excruciating version of “Song for the Dumped” including a secret refrain and the last chorus in Japanese — proving to be rewardingly absurd. He topped it off by throwing his stool at the piano in his appropriate final farewell.