Imagine your favorite band, live - go ahead, I'll wait - and then add a symphony orchestra to back them. Hear, in your mind, cellos and basses strumming the deepest lows and a raft of flautists hammering the raucous highs. Take away the trap set that you hear when the album plays in your car and replace it with a timpanist providing new percussive depth. Add an operatic tenor to provide the chorus in front of a wall-of-sound finale to a song you never quite got but is your favorite the next morning. Now imagine this outdoors as the remnants of a tropical storm blow the cloudy veil off skyscrapers visible in the not-so-distant city which provide the only illumination on a very dark night. That was Ben Folds and the Philadelphia Orchestra at Mann Center last night.

posted at 1:21 PM - comments