CONCERT REVIEW | BEN FOLDS' PAPER AIRPLANE REQUEST TOUR I've always had the belief that Ben Folds could have chased any career in music if he wanted to. A rockstar, a composer, a parody act. But on Tuesday night, the talented songwriter behind alt-rock band Ben Folds Five, 1997 hit "Brick" and many, many songs on film and TV soundtracks, was the funniest guy in the Quad-Cities.
Folds performed Tuesday at Davenport's Capitol Theatre to a mostly full and entirely passionate crowd. The show had a unique twist: It was part of Folds' Paper Airplane Request Tour. Just as it sounds, the tour allowed fans to fold up sheets of printer paper — provided at the venue — into airplanes with written song requests on them.
This gimmick made the show feel less like a typical concert and more like a stage play. The theatrical feel started with opener Lindsey Kraft, who showed off songs from her forthcoming musical, "love, me." If audience members didn't know Kraft was developing a musical, they learned pretty quickly because of the way the singer-actress talk-sang through the whole set of seemingly improvisational piano tunes.
It wasn't always clear when she was or wasn't in character, but Kraft was always open, and always amusing. Her songs followed a narrative: her long-term relationship turned non-monogamous, leading to her falling for her musical hero, getting dumped by said hero, stalking him and going nuts. It was messy but engaging.
It made the 35-minute set feel like a three-minute movie trailer. Folds even joined for two songs, including one presumably called "Daddy" about how her musical-idol-turned-lover moved on to dating a girl young enough to be his daughter. But the best part of Kraft's se came when she gave shoutouts to Davenport spots Redband Coffee Company — "the best coffee I've ever had" — and Miss Phay Cafe — "the best Thai food I've ever had.
" Folds joked about newspapers and Effingham At 7:45 p.m., Folds arrived.
The singer broke his set into two sections: a structured, eight-song set and an all-request, 13-song set, split in half by intermission. In total, his performance lasted two hours. Folds, dressed in baggy pants an open blue shirt and glasses on the edge of his nose, came to the stage looking nothing like a star musician with millions of plays, but instead like a high school science teacher who als leads the drama club.
Seated at his Black Steinway piano, flanked by a pile of wate bottles and music books, Folds opened with "So There," where his twinkles on the piano keys were mimicked by shimmers in the stage lights. Throughout the set, Folds' piano savvy was obvious. He danced from funky riff s to thunderous stomps with ease.
On "The Ascent Of Stan," a request, his fingers scraped acros the keys like river rapids over stones. His wispy voice sounded as distinct on stage as it does on record, even if it meant getting pitchy here and there. His voice cracked on 2023 track "Fragile," a song that he explained was written based on a newspaper article about a burglar who cried and forked up $250 when he got caught in the act.
The lyrical strategy of turning a newspaper story into a song came up a few times, most notably on second set opener "Cologne," which Folds said was written after reading too many stories in the U.S. about astronaut Lisa Nowak, who drove across the country to attack a romantic rival in 2007.
"I'm tired of writing songs about newspapers," he joked, to which I counter: Please, Ben, can I talk you into a $2 per month discount? Folds closed his first set with a series of four songs that got the crowd riled ahead of intermission: "Kristine from 7th Grade," a song about losing a childhood friend to conspiracy theories and political radicalization; "Effington," a song apparently about Effingham, Illinois, that got big whoops for its references to Normal; "Annie Waits," which fans clapped perfectly in-sync for, and "Me and Maurice," a holiday ballad about Folds' dog that will be on his upcoming Christmas album. That's when the crowd sent Folds off for a break, and the airplane folding began. 'Rockin' The Suburbs' meets 'Killing In The Name' The Capitol foyer was a madhouse during intermission, as the venue played appropriate songs like "Fly Like an Eagle" and "Learning To Fly.
" Many stuck their sheets against the walls, leaning into their knuckles to get the perfect folds (get it?) on their paper planes. The throwing of the planes itself was an event. It commenced with a 10-second countdown by a man in magician's garb on stage, minutes before Folds came back for his second set.
The air show was messy but beautiful. Hundreds of fans confessed the songs that meant the most to them. When it was all said and done, a sea of white speckled the stage floor.
I even got one on the stage, unsuccessfully recommending newspaper ballad "Fred Jones Pt. 2." I asked around to see what the most popular plane-requested songs were, and there was no easy answer.
Jim Casterton, of Bettendorf, requested the "perfect" and "timeless" song "Landed" on his airplane, but also tossed one with "Careless Whisper" for good fun. Dena Border, of Davenport, asked for "Your Redneck Past," one of her husband's favorite songs, since he couldn't make it to the show. Jack Border went with Ben Folds Five track "Philosophy.
" Heidi McDaniel, who drove to the Q-C from Morton, Illinois, for the show, worked hard on folding her plane asking for Folds' signature love song "The Luckiest." That was by far one of the most popular requests of the night. And McDaniel was, in fact, pretty lucky.
Folds played the song as his second pick from the sea of planes on stage, introducing it first with a story about how "The Luckiest" was rejected from the soundtrack of the 2000 teen comedy "Losers." Folds got the last laugh, though, because "Losers" struggled at the box office and "The Luckiest" was included years later in the considerably better film "About Time." The song also made a few prestigious lists, Folds joked.
"It sometimes makes Martha Stewart's top five wedding songs," he said. "That's the only time you'll see my f*****g name on a chart." After "The Luckiest," Folds moved onto Regina Spektor collaboration "You Don't Know Me," and the crowd handled Spektor's verses with ease.
From start to finish on Tuesday, my mind was blown by Folds fans' ferocity. They shook the building during "Zak and Sara," clapped on beat with all of the singer's deepest cuts and shouted all of his silly ad-libs. I was also impressed with the fan-crafted setlist.
"Gracie" and "Magic" were sentimental favorites, and there were plenty of gag requests, too. Seriously, thanks to this goofy bunch of fans, the Capitol Theatre got to hear: ■ One lyric of "Free Bird" by Lynyrd Skynyrd. ■ One verse of "A** Crack Bandit," a Folds song from his cameo in the TV show "Community.
" ■ Half a cover of The Clash classic "Lost In The Supermarket," but specifically the slightly altered version Folds recorded for the animated film "Over The Hedge." ■ A roughly five-minute, improvisational song with Kraft about the papercut dangers that come with making paper planes. ■ A full, unreleased alternate version of "B***h Went Nutz" about cocaine, lawyers and liberal politics at a holiday Christmas party.
Folds said he wrote it in a few minutes while drunk on a plane. The crowd's choices amused me, but not quite as much as Folds amused them. During "Losing Lisa," two Folds fanatics leaped from their seats with arms in the air like fans at a football game.
Speaking of football, the opening lyric from "Effington" was a crowd-pleaser. "If there's a God, he's laughing at us and our football team," Folds sang, and the Capitol joined in with church choir levels of efficiency. Throughout the show, I heard phrases screamed unanimously that I never thought I'd hear in an ornate theater of seated patrons: "b***h" ("Song For The Dumped"), "f**k" and "Preparation H.
" Those last two came from "Rockin' The Suburbs," the last song of Folds' encore. It's a hilarious and catchy parody of Y2K-era nu-metal that sounded just as spunky on a Steinway. He finished the song with some political satire, adding an interpolation of Rage Against The Machine's "Killing In The Name," but changing a few words to reference a meme poking fun at vice presidential candidate JD Vance.
While that got some laughs, the most noise came earlier in the song, as the crowd shouted an F-word at full volume during the bridge. Spoiler alert: The F-word wasn't Folds. Get local news delivered to your inbox!.
