hi.
rachel and i and 22,315 of our closest friends went to see john mayer and ben folds (with james morrison) at raleigh's enormo-dome on tuesday evening. as you could imagine, most of the tanned-skin, cell-phone-toting nineteen-year-old girls were there for mister mayer (and rightly so: he's sooo dreamy) and i thought for months that this was an odd duo to be touring together. i mean, i like them both, but they seem, musically or demographically, to neither overlap nor compliment. however, the result was successful: great performances, top-notch backing bands, terrific showmanship - a great call all the way around, except for one thing.
the king of irony outdid himself a few years ago by setting dr. dre's "b-tches ain't sh-t" (i'm not sure what i accomplish by gouging the i's out, but there you are) to foldsian melody and instrumentation with at once hilarious and sublime results. it has become a BF show favorite. prior to this night i had wondered if he would do the song. "surely not," i thought. "this isn't really his show."
he did it. and i thought he shouldn't have.
i'm not intending to be self-righteous; in fact, it's not at all that nat stine was embarrassed by this crass song. it's more that nat stine was embarrassed by this crass song being heard by twenty-thousand-plus tanned-skin, cell-phone-toting...you know -- most of them there to see the other guy. [i know a teenager who was there with her parents. awkward.] i am a huh-yooge BF fan (thanks in large part to my bro-in-law), and his wonderfully whiny reflections on the ironies of love and life often result in some four-letter sunday school words. his honesty is quite engaging and endearing. this song goes beyond the occasional throwaway cuss to an onslaught of graphic images and word-pictures that i believe were inappropriate for that particular crowd.
(am i getting old?)
when an artist headlines a show, that crowd is theirs. ben folds engages, involves, and loves his audience as few others can. however, on this occasion i would have expected ben to recognize whom 90% of people were there to see and not expose them all to the funny-but-dirty family inside joke.
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5 comments:
I know what you mean. It was funny, and to those who really know his music and appreciate his humor I guess it sort of comes across just how you described it: an inside joke. But to everyone else there who is uninitiated to Ben Folds, that's probaly the only thing they'll remember about him. I have to admit that in hindsight I felt slightly embarassed sitting there singing along.
... Oh, and John Mayer is the dreamiest.
yes, beeps.
O, are you saying that Gen Y doesn't "do" irony?
it's not that. it's that they're being barraged with OVERLY graphic word-images that they didn't ask for.
and yes, gen y doesn't give a rip about irony -- they're too busy updating their myspace pages.
You are So Old.
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