Response to Eef Barzelay

Tuesday, March 3, Ben Folds had a concert here. Overall, I enjoyed the Ben Folds part of the concert (with the exception of the song that went something like “bitch went nuts”). The issues I have are by and large with other things.

First of all, I enjoyed Undeclared. I was, however, disappointed that Undeclared was not even given the courtesy of having microphones. When the concert is sold out and a group doesn’t have microphones, that is bad business on the concert organizers’ part. Also, I was under the impression that Undeclared would be opening for Ben Folds not singing three, no wait, that became two songs before the concert officially started. While I understand that things change at the last minute, that seemed quite uncalled-for to me.

Secondly, the person who opened for Ben Folds (he was so memorable that I don’t quite recall his name) was bad. Now, I’m not talking Luther-College-is-made-up-of-music-people-so-we-have-super-high-standards bad, I’m talking I’m-not-a-music-person-and-can’t-hold-a-tune-myself-but-even-I-knew-it-was-terrible bad. His lyrics were just plain bad. The song that really got me was the song about getting a girl drunk just to take advantage of her. That was in the first half of his set and it went downhill from there. In addition to horrible content, his voice was terrible. I even had to go to the bathroom during his performance just so that I could get away from him. Finally, he had horrible stage performance.

Needless to say, when I found myself clapping for him (because I wasn’t paying attention and so, when everyone else clapped, my automatic reaction was to join in) I was appalled. I think part of the problem is that we are so programmed to applaud, we don’t realize that it is OK, and sometimes necessary, to not applaud. Sometimes people need to know that you did not appreciate their misogynistic lyrics and that they are not welcome. But alas, he probably left the stage thinking he was even cooler than when he first came on stage.

So, whoever was in charge of the event: next time you decide to bail on the original opener (especially when they are Luther College performers), please at least make sure you’re replacing them with somebody better instead of somebody easily 10 times worse.

Sincerely,

Emily Ewing