The relationship between Ben Folds and South Florida’s tri-county region is now apparently copacetic. After going some 15 years without a full gig here, Folds returned in November 2024 for a celebrated solo performance on his Paper Airplane Request Tour, in which audiences decided the majority of his set list. Less than a year later, Folds returned to sunny Broward County for a show that was no less spartan in its design—the tour is titled “Ben Folds and a Piano,” after all—but that saw the charismatic singer-songwriter decide all the songs this time around.
A relentless road warrior of late, Folds has been performing almost nightly since Nov. 6, and if Friday night’s appearance at Coral Springs Center for the Arts was any indication, the grueling schedule was starting to take its toll in his voice, which ran ragged across more than a couple of numbers. During “Fred Jones Part 2,” an off-mic cough briefly disrupted one of Folds’ most beloved ballads.
But if the performance might not have been up to snuff for a live recording, Folds’ showmanship, perseverance and storytelling carried the evening, and I was among a legion of fans grateful to spend 90 minutes in his gregarious presence. Simply clad in dark pants and a “New York” T-shirt, Folds opened his set with a rollicking take on “So There,” a display of his economical songwriting that contains one his most cutting refrains (“I will not forget you / there is nothing to forget”). Filling his inspired solo with the sturm und drang befitting the tune’s post-breakup bitterness, Folds set the tone for a night of deepish cuts and crowd favorites—some might say the concert leaned too much on the former and not quite enough on the latter—that showcased Folds’ depth and virtuosity on his instrument.
On the Ben Folds Five classic “Don’t Change Your Plans,” for instance, his solo ambled across the piano keys like a delightful amble in a spring meadow, while “The Last Polka” found him landing often on the thunderous far left of the keyboard, and even slapping around the microphone for additional percussion. Folds exhibited his mastery across myriad genres, from the gospel exaltation of “Lullaby” to the oddly timed jazz flourishes of “Philosophy,” a capstone of the set. “Zak and Sara” culminated in a rousing bebop climax, as Folds’ fingers seemed to move along the keys at a pace approaching the speed of light. Folds essentially channeled Mozart, Keith Jarrett, Scott Joplin and Elton John—“Landed” sounded like a lost cut from “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”—at various points throughout the show, finding new avenues of inspiration in material both old and recent.
Folds teed up many of the tunes with backstories that added to their dimension, their heft and sometimes their whimsy, introducing us to the newspaperman forced into retirement that yielded “Fred Jones, Part II,” the schizophrenic math whiz that was “Eddie Walker” and the COVID-era conspiracy rabbit holes at the center of the alternately humorous and haunting “Kristine From the Seventh Grade.” As always happens at Folds’ show, the audience embraced a campfire-like singalong vibe, serving as backing vocalists on signature tunes like “Zak and Sara” and “You Don’t Know Me.”
Folds will soon hit the road again for a series of Christmas shows—no rest for the weary—that are not stopping here. But if his run of Florida love continues, we’ll see him a year from now, our vocal cords refreshed and eager to play our parts in the choir.
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