From: owner-rockford-files-digest@smoe.org (The Rockford Files) To: rockford-files-digest@smoe.org Subject: The Rockford Files V2 #277 Reply-To: rockford-files@smoe.org Sender: owner-rockford-files-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-rockford-files-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk The Rockford Files Sunday, October 17 1999 Volume 02 : Number 277 Today's Fjordian Filings: -------------------------------------- Cinci Show! Saturday, October 16, 1999 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 16 Oct 1999 21:44:04 -0400 From: john_oc@juno.com Subject: Cinci Show! I don't have the time to give a huge review here, but I will offer some of the highlights and let someone else do the dirty work. This is the first show in a while where I didn't stick around after, or get a set-list for the first time in a long time. The Taft Theater presented a very comfortable surrounding, it is a two tiered theatre, with nice seats and good leg room in the aisles(which means lots of room for dancing! The band came out, in nice suits, well except ben who donned the traditional jeans and flannel. The opened with a beatiful rendition of Don't Change Your Plans, including John Mark Painter on Flugelhorn and Trumpen, and Fleming McWilliams with a beautiful descant that was similar to the string parts. I was hoping that Fleming and John would come back out for Army, but it was not to be. My highlights are Regrets as always, which I think is an amazing song. Narcolepsy, I also think this song is at least 80 times better live. EMALINE!!! This is still my all-time favorite BFF song, and I was so excited when they started playing it. I noticed I was one of the few in the theatre that actually knew the song, I was going crazy! Of course Magic and Mess were great, as was Last Polka...shit, Darren was going crazy on Last Polka...I mean he usually does, but this time was crazy! The set was ALMOST IDENTICAL to the set I saw in Washington DC except they played Last Polka and Emaline instead of Where's Summer B? and Video...can't complain there...I adore all 4 songs. The Cincy show marked my ELEVENTH time seeing the boys...and I'm proud. Though, I'm sure many of you have me beat. I do have one gripe about the Cinci show...because of my average music knowledge I won't be able to completely accurate in this description, but here goes...Ben's tack piano(for Mess, etc.) and the Grand were horribly out of tune, in the same place on each keyboard. The third octave from the right(highest notes) was horribly out of tune. Now this tells me one of two things, either the tuner has a horrible ear, or the tuner machine is broken. It was real bad on a few songs, namely Mess, Philosophy, and Hospital Song. I was able to look past it...but it was unbearable on those songs...just sending chills down my spine(the bad kind, not the good kind). I'm sad though, because I know that RIGHT NOW(9:37pm) Train has just left the stage at the Newport in Columbus, Ohio and the roadies are setting up Ben Folds Five and I"m not there!!!! I was supposed to be there, but PromoWest pulled my comp tickets from my college radio station that I work at because the show was too big, but of course I find this out when I get back from Cincy this afternoon!!! God damnit! Screw Radio Promotions! I'm so pissed off! In better news, your reading a post from the Miami University Invitaitonal Debate Champion...good enough for an automatic bid to Nationals! 4th year in a row that I have secured an automatic bid! Woohoo! And I got it done at the second tournament of the season...damn straight. Ciao! John in Columbus. ___________________________________________________________________ Get the Internet just the way you want it. Free software, free e-mail, and free Internet access for a month! Try Juno Web: http://dl.www.juno.com/dynoget/tagj. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 17 Oct 1999 02:32:17 -0400 From: "Barbi Sliemers" Subject: Saturday, October 16, 1999 Most likely, that was the last Ben Folds five concert I will ever attend. My review and explanation: I began my wait outside the doors of Newport at 4:30pm for a 7:30 concert. This gave me a spot (not seat, as I have insinuated before that I could not handle seeing my five in a venue that big) right in front of the piano. I mean, two pianos. And right up next to the stage, as with the other 6 times I've seen them. The opening bands were great, as I knew beforehand, since I would have traveled to see them, Ben Folds or no Ben Folds. As the trio who has made a momentous contribution to my life took the rainbow-lit stage, they played tunes of new and old. They EASED my constant wanting to break the new album into pieces by running it over in my car. I was relieved... Ah... it's not the music that's bad... it's only the way it was recorded. But you couldn't 'record' that sound. It wasn't a sound.. it was... an experience... not even a sound... like music but transformed. Regrets, Mess, Narcolepsy, and even Redneck Past... I don't see how heroine could be better. But it wasn't the same. It wasn't something I could keep and take with me. As the sounds of the first album, the sounds of my life in 1996 took over, I started to cry. Good memories, bad memories. I saw this band in a fucking bar! They ran out of material to play but we begged them to stay, and they begged us to yell out a cover that they would gladly make up on the spot. Such intimacy, and now LOOK! Newport! Sold out Newport! Why are all these people here? Why do they think this is such a great concert? How did this band become so important in my life? Maybe because I had many "friends" who used me and then ditched me. But no one could take away my Ben Folds Five. Maybe I needed attention. Ben knew my face for a while there, but that was a long time ago. The band is not the same. They've grown and so has their music writing, instrumentation, and their shows. The venues are not the same. The fans are definitely not the same; there's more of them, and they're not really fans anyway. But I am also not the same. After deciding not to wait to meet the guys this time, I realized that the next time they play, it will be in an even bigger venue. I got lucky this time, to be able to watch them in a standing position without binoculars; something that I always took for granted. Since the next time I probably won't find that kind of luck, I can't torture myself any longer. This is it. "I love you. Goodbye" Barbi ------------------------------ End of The Rockford Files V2 #277 *********************************