[Sabrina Stone]

Ben Folds Paper Airplane Request Tour at The Fillmore

15:00 December 23, 2024
By: Sabrina Stone

Ben Folds has been consistently releasing music since 1995. With eleven albums worth of material that spans a 30-year-career, every audience member familiar with his work (and nearly every audience member in the Fillmore seemed familiar with his work) is likely to have different favorite songs. That's why creating a setlist based on audience requests felt like a loving gesture and asking us to hand write the requests on paper airplanes the excited audience flew towards the stage was inspired.

He seemed as excited and anxious as his fans in attendance, as he poured his heart into songs from different eras, solo on the Steinway Grand, and then stood up, wandered the stage, picked up a plane, and allowed each suggestion to launch us into an entirely new mood.

Ben Folds [Sabrina Stone]

Folds wanted us to feel "Capable of Anything" so he performed that before the requests began, as well as my favorite tear-jerker "Still Fighting it." We knew we would hear "Phone in a Pool" because it's his New Orleans name drop song, though we didn't realize we'd get the full backstory (involving Kesha actually jumping into said pool, in a hoodie, retrieving his blackberry, and telling him to put it in rice but that not working and him still having to wait in line at the Verizon store the next day.)

"Zak and Sara" was the second plane he picked up and likely one of many that requested it, as the crowd was full-singing every lyric.

One fan wrote, "I'm not old enough to have ever been to a Ben Folds Five Show" and requested "One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces," which he happily obliged.

There were dozens of varied choices and he slammed out one after another, but before Folds picked up the last plane, he thanked us all for taking him on a journey he hadn't expected to go on.

"Let's hope the last one isn't something stupid," he said and then giggled realizing that it was one of his first-ever songs, the extremely cheeky "Philosophy." Before he began playing it he said, "if this isn't your cup of tea, blame Crystal," which was followed by laughter and a general roar of excitement, as he banged out the intro.

The song became a sing-a-long, like much of the joyful, hilarious, heartfelt set.

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