I thought about..... your mommy.

Ben Folds roooolz! I mean, I don't have that many concerts to compare it with, having only been to two prior, but I'm really not a concert person. I think for me to even slightly get into one, it has to be someone that I love already being pretty friggin' awesome.

Anyway, he was friggin' awesome. His hands on the piano were like a blur most of the time. And the little anecdotes in between songs were hilarious. He was even cool enough to come up with a little song about Bloomington-Normal. It was mostly about State Farm (the corporate office is here, they're the biggest employer in this town, my sister works for them and my dad used to). I can't really remember how it goes (which makes me sad) but it starts out with, "We know you fucked up..." so you know it has to be good. And he said it was the gym with the best acoustics he ever played at *wink wink*

Which, I would've been pretty pissed if the concert wasn't that great, because I had to stand outside 45 minutes in the freezing cold, endure the opening act*, and then sit on those damn bleachers another half hour between.

Also, I think I got a lot more out of it than most of the people near me**. I think they'd only heard a couple of songs from Rockin' The Suburbs, but he also played stuff from all the Ben Folds Five albums, all the EP's, stuff I don't think he's ever really released, and stuff he said was going to be released on a new album soon. Which it all was pretty awesome, so I know I'm probably going to end up buying the new album when it comes out.

It's also weird how many strange memories I have associated with Ben Folds songs. Honestly, during the concert I realized that both Carrying Cathy and Not The Same now remind me of the days I spent in the hospital after my gallbladder surgery. I had a CD player with me, and a buttload of CD's in the hospital. But those bastards would move everything out of my reach when they'd come to take my blood pressure for the nine hundredth time, and I wouldn't be able to reach my other CD's, so I'd be stuck with one CD for hours and hours, total time depending on how soon my parents would visit and put things back for me (there was a TV in the room, but it sucked and I didn't have my contacts in anyway, so I pretty much just listened to my CD's). Anyway, I got stuck listening to Rockin' The Suburbs for eight hours (I am actually not exaggerating here). Which is a little much even for me. Anyway, I hadn't previously loved Carrying Cathy (though I thought it was alright before). But for the sake of repeating the CD less, I listened to it all over and over, including songs like CC that I usually skip about half the time, and I decided I loved it all of a sudden.

Not The Same I had previously loved, but what reminds me of it is the fact that I fell asleep during one of these many repetitions of the album, and I had these really freaky dreams in the hospital (I was halfway crazy by the time I got out of the hospital. I remember one of these dreams was I was stuck in this messed up movie with Maculay Culkin and Michael Jackson) and I woke up during "Not the Same," which is kind of a weird song, and it just DOUBLY freaked me out, and I almost hurt the woman who woke me up (to take my blood pressure the nine hundredth and one time).

So anyway: Ben puts on a good show.
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* The opening act wasn't that bad, only there wasn't one advertised, so everyone was angry with her. In addition, no one had ever heard of her. But the biggest reason it was such a pain was since everyone decided to be jerks and talk over her set, you couldn't even hear her properly, so it was just like sitting around on painful bleachers listening to the annoying people next to me talk.

** Some IWU students that didn't even know who Ben was at all came, because apparently they got to come for free. How come ISU never holds a concert and lets students in for free? Bogus.