Monday, May 30, 2011

Ben Folds

On Sunday May 22 I went to see the Ben Folds gig at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre Theatre1. It's the second time I'll have seen him since he went solo; the last time was quite a while back, when he played with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra at the Festival Centre. Prior to that I saw him twice when he was still with Ben Folds Five.

I was huge Ben Folds Five fan; their first (self-titled) album is one of my favourites, and I rate it as one of the best – maybe even the best – debut album of all time. While I'm not quite as fond of the later albums with the group or his solo stuff – which isn't to say that I think it's bad, per se; it's that the debut album is so damn good, with an amazing energy and some truly kickass songs like Underground, Philosophy, Best Imitation of Myself, Video, Julianne and Uncle Walter, it's hard for anything else to compare – there are good songs on each. So I'd always be up to see him live.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

A Wicked good time

From the moment during last year's Cabaret Festival when the crowd of people emerging from co-creator Stephen Schwartz's show, buzzing with excitement because he'd let slip that the hugely popular show would be coming to Adelaide in 2011, I've been looking forward to seeing Wicked.

Obviously I could have travelled to Sydney or Melbourne or Brisbane to see it while it played in those cities, but I'm generally of the opinion that if the producers of a show aren't willing to bring it to Adelaide, then they don't deserve my money.