Ben Folds Fakes

Last night, Mark and I left Felix with my mom for the evening and went out! Together! Just us! So very rare.

We had supper at Bin 26 Enoteca on Charles Street, and let me tell you, it was yum! I had a really interesting sauvignon blanc, made by this hippy winemaker from Northern California, who lets his wines be free, no interference from him, and the results in this case were pretty cool. It had the nose of a traditional sauvignon blanc, all crisp and citrusy, but the finish was nutty, almost toasty.

I had marinated anchovies, tapas style, followed by a stacked "salad" of Belgian endive and roasted red and golden beets, and then a tapas style plate of saffron suppli with Fontina. Mark had a roasted duck carpaccio, summer vegetable gazpacho (one of the best examples of the cold, Spanish soup favorite I've had in recent memory - because of course I stole tasted a little), and a hangar steak with sauteed chard that was delish! melty and well sauced. We had to skip dessert, which was too bad, but we'd already decided to skip the opening act at the Ben Folds show at the Orpheum in favor of dinner, and we didn't want to miss the man himself.

The show was great. That man can rock a piano! I've only seen him once before, opening for Tori Amos at Harborlights a bunch of years back, and that opening act was so good, we were actually kind of disappointed with Tori. This show didn't disappoint, with one tiny exception. His new album is being released on Tuesday, and since the show was technically a promotion of the new material, the first hour was all stuff no one knew. That said, the new material is worthy of a listen.

Apparently, an extire fake album, using the actual song titles, with "fake versions" was recorded, marketed and leaked, as a practical joke to the music industry, and so for every second song he played, he also played a "fake version" of it, which required some explanation on the part of Mr. Folds. In one or two cases, I actually liked the fakes better....

The encore was a half a dozen tracks of "old shit," to quote Ben, including Army, to the delight of the crowd, and the whole show wrapped up before eleven (ensuring that the parents at the show could get home to their sitters.... )

And the cherry on top of our sundae of a Friday was coming home to a sleeping baby who'd eaten a good dinner and been sweet for his Gramma, a sleeping baby who stayed that way all night!