The Cast of Characters:

Ben Folds: singer/songwriter, formerly the leader of a trio, Ben Folds Five
Doug Goodman: regular tour manager, left early to work Warped in Australia
Chris Kathman: replacement tour manager and sometime sound mixer
Marc Chevalier: FOH mixer from Nashville
Joe DeLorenzo: Hired thug
One white van, one yellow 15 footer, and one Baldwin grand piano

Little Known Facts about Ben Folds

1. Ben dislikes hearing amplified sound if it contains too much high-frequency information. When he was touring clubs, he would often actually ask the local monitor person to turn off the horn in bi-amped wedges!

2. When Ben was in high school, he made an ambitiously quadruple-overdubbed tape of himself, acapella, singing Joe Jackson songs, and titled it the Joe Jackson Five. Sold on consignment at the local record store, Ben estimates it sold as many as 20 or 30 copies!

3. I am personally prejudiced in favor of Ben because of an incident that took place at San Francisco’s Great American Music Hall when I worked there. Ben Folds Five rolled up out front with their van and trailer. I had heard a rumor that they were carrying an acoustic piano, and I was complaining to my co-workers that I drew the line at lifting that sucker onto the stage, goshdarnit!

Ben walked in and I asked him if it was true that they had a piano. He said yes, but then as I inhaled to begin my tirade, the next words out of his mouth were: “You won’t have to touch it. We put it up on the stage and we take it down.” Now that is class! That is why I will follow this guy anywhere. Hey, wait a minute! Did you say Bakersfield? Now hold on …

March 26th, 2002

11AM: C.K. enters parking lot at VH-1 soundstage in Hollywood. Very gratified to learn that my name is about to be added to sign for parking space. Notice there are roughly 30 tanned and fit young twentysomethings rushing around with radio headsets. Can’t help wondering if eliminating 29 of them would result in a smoother operation. Inspect dressing rooms, and walk onto stage where Alien Ant Farm is rehearsing. Hey, they’re pretty good!

11:10: Ask to see the piano that has been delivered for Ben, who is landing at Burbank Airport any minute now. Staffer tells me, “Well, you can see it, but it doesn’t work.”

11:11: Blood pressure skyrockets and low-grade panic begins festering. This is my first day working for Ben, and the piano doesn’t work! Staffer explains further, it seems like he has done all the right things, called the transport company, who has called Baldwin, and a master tuner is on his way to help us. I get the tuner’s cell number from the transport company, and he assures me he knows what the problem is, and I do not need to get a new piano airlifted in. Regular breathing pattern begins to return.

When the tuner arrives, he turns out to be The Man, Keith Albright, who tunes for all the major music and film studios. He is well on in years, but undoes the keys assembly, and bodily lifts it straight out of the piano, brushing off offers of help from myself and other completely useless well-dressed bystanders. We stand around officiously while Keith does his magic. On the other side of the stage is a fake piano, a MIDI controller in a grand’s shell, that had been offered as a replacement, and even though I do not know Ben well, I was confident in saying that this alternative would not be acceptable.

Ben arrives with his manager, Alan Wolmark, and my former employer, John McCrea, lead vocalist of Cake. John and Ben are going to sing “Fred Jones Part 2,” the song that John guested on for Ben’s album. Keith Albright has gone, but Ben is happy to hear he was the one who worked on the piano. I guess it’s kind of like having Dave Rat tweak your PA.

Ben and John rehearse for the cameras with one Audiotek wedge apiece. Marc Chevalier, Ben’s mixer for this tour, takes a lap through the stage, emerging from the room where the broadcast mix is being done on multiple Yamaha 02R’s. We agree that the PA is driving kind of hard, and threatening to resonate with the open grand piano, so Marc goes to tell the PA crew to turn it down.

The piano and wedges are struck, so that Alien Ant Farm can tape their part of the show, “Late World With Zach.” When they are done, the stage is restored. Many stagehands, multiple sound guys, and the aforementioned Clipboard Kids. All that, and still the two wedges are plugged in backwards. So, when Ben and John sing their harmonies, John cannot hear himself at all, but he is blaring madly out of Ben’s wedge.

Take Two. Much better.

John leaves, and Ben then tapes two versions of “Rockin’ The Suburbs.” Earlier, the show had asked Alan Wolmark if Ben could say something other than “all my shitty tracks.” They were told just to bleep it out rather than interrupt the flow of the lyrics. Of course, Ben has decided to say “my shitty shitty shitty shitty shitty tracks.” That will have to be a pretty long bleep! At the point in the song where he says the “F” word on the record, he gestures to the studio audience, and they all joyously scream it at the top of their lungs.