Ben Folds at Anita's Theatre, Photograph by Britt Andrews
There are gigs, and then there are small pilgrimages.
On Saturday night at the Anita’s Theatre in Thirroul, Ben Folds delivered the latter: a solo show that felt less like a concert and more like being invited into the lounge room of a man who has spent three decades quietly building one of the great modern American songbooks.
I made the drive south with my 16-year-old son – one of those rare intergenerational alignments where taste, timing and temperament collide in your favour. I’ve loved Folds since the percussive punch and knotty harmonies of the Ben Folds Five days. My son, now a fully committed disciple, approaches him differently – as both fan and piano student, studying the mechanics as much as the melodies.
Anita’s, full to the rafters, felt like an old dance hall stubbornly refusing to modernise. On stage: a lone Steinway concert grand. Above it: a lighting rig capable of little more than a blue wash, an orange wash, and the sort of half-hearted flashing effect that would have looked ambitious in 1987. No band. No theatrics. Just wood, wire, felt and nerve. And talk. A lot of talk.
The first two-thirds of the night unfolded like a piano bar session after closing time, when only the true believers remain perched on their stools. Folds rummaged through his teenage years, early compositions, obscure detours. Even as a long-time fan, I struggled to recognise much of the repertoire. But recognition wasn’t really the point. Each song arrived wrapped in anecdote – childhood memories, awkward ambitions, the long arc of becoming. The music was contextualised in a way that made you feel less like a consumer of content and more like a co-conspirator. It was generous. Intimate. Occasionally rambling. Entirely compelling.
As ever with Folds, the hero is the piano. He doesn’t so much play the instrument as interrogate it. Thick, muddy left-hand bass thumps like a rhythm section; the right hand skitters and sparkles, delicate as cracked glass. He stamps his fingerprints over every note. You feel the chords as much as you hear them.
Then, about an hour in, the valve opened. Out came the classics: forty minutes of bona fide bangers from across the back catalogue. The shift in the room was instant. The average age might have hovered somewhere north of 40, but for a while, the theatre vibrated with the energy of 16-year-olds discovering their first great love.
By the end, Folds’ voice had begun to fray at the edges. He leaned into it, handing choruses over to the crowd. They needed no encouragement – every lyric was flung back at the stage with giddy precision. It was communal catharsis in sensible shoes.
What lingered wasn’t irony or nostalgia. It was the reminder that Ben Folds has built something substantial. Not just a run of hits, but a body of work that privileges musicianship, wit and intelligence over trend-chasing.
Sharing that in a modest theatre in Thirroul, with my son beside me, watching him watch the hands, the harmonies, the architecture of it all, felt quietly profound. On the drive home, we didn’t speak much. We didn’t need to. Just more Folds to guide us home.
Ben Folds performed at Anita’s Theatre, Thirroul, on the stolen land of the Dharawal people, on Saturday 21 February.
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