Two Men and a Piano

And not in the Trick kind of way.

"Odd Men Out" Tour. Ben Folds and Rufus Wainwright. The Wiltern, Los Angeles, CA. 08/18/05.

It's an interesting tour, because I think for the most part you're either a Ben Folds fan or a Rufus Wainwright fan. Despite the fact that they're both piano-playing kinda guys and singer/songwriters, they don't seem to have much of an audience in common. Myself, I'm a Rufus fan, so the end of the evening was by far the highlight.

I arrived late and waited in a long line to use the bathroom, so I missed opening act Ben Lee, but from the last song that I did catch, the Australian group seemed pretty fun.

Ben Folds was quite pleasant, although because I wasn't familiar enough with his work, all of the songs ran together in my head in a soothing puddle. The most entertaining moment was when he covered Dr. Dre's "B*tches Ain't Sh*t," which was weird and funny.

Rufus Wainwright is a wonderful entertainer, and he played all the best songs. He has a mesmerizing voice and a delightful stage presence, and "Hallelujah," "California," and "Beautiful Child" were especially sublime. He was adorable between songs, making delightful Judy Garland references and telling us about when he dreamed of playing at the Wiltern. He wore a very nice black velvet jacket (which I coveted) and also appeared to be wearing sandals. He played the piano and rocked on the guitar and even sang a duet with Folds. Rufus clearly carried the evening and made it all worth while.

The venue, however, was miserable. While the Wiltern is a beautiful theater, it did everything in its power to ruin the evening. The ladies' room smelled terrible and had a long line, but that was just the beginning. Our seats were at the very top of the theater in the back balcony, and the heat was stifiling. I was sweating from the moment I reached my seat, and I left the theater exhausted and dehydrated. I know heat rises, but they clearly need better air conditioning to keep the balcony livable. It really detracted from the concert to be so overheated throughout. The worst thing, however, was the lighting. The lighting designer clearly had no idea what was going on. The lights were always a little behind what was happening onstage, there was often light on the stage where nothing was happening, the light reflected off Rufus' guitar was bouncing all over the walls and terribly distracting (OK, s/he might not have been able to do anything about that), the moving lights were out of sync, and the moving lights frequently bounced across the stage in ugly and distracting patterns for no good reason. All of these things made an otherwise enjoyable concert much less entertaining.

The show was fun, but it did make me nostalgic for last year around this time, when we saw Rufus perform with k.d. lang at the Hollywood Bowl. It was a beautiful summer evening under the stars, not too warm, not too cold, surrounded by good friends, pleasantly tipsy on cheap red wine, and Rufus and k.d. each sang "Hallelujah" - you don't get much better than that.