Whether on his own or with the Ben Folds Five, Ben Folds has always made it seem easy to create light, entertaining pop songs about quirky characters who celebrate their faults. So perhaps the 42 year-old singer from Winston-Salem, NC has been looking for new challenges. For his latest project, Way To Normal, Folds not only released a conventional 12-track version of the album, but also “leaked” several “fake” alternate versions of the songs with the same title, but with radically different lyrics and arrangements, onto the Internet. (Read more about that in our extended interview with Ben Folds).

In concert last night at the Congress Theatre, Folds’s main set consisted mostly of those new tracks, both the “proper” and alternate versions, often back to back. Folds has a loyal, obsessive fanbase so he’s one of the few performers who could even think of attempting such a feat. As such, this was not a show for the casual fan (his biggest hit “Brick,” and other live favorites like “Philosophy” and “Army” where left out), but rather a show that had Folds experimenting with the artistic process. How much you enjoyed the show largely depended on how much you enjoy seeing the sausage get made.

Folds has always been an active performer, from his fight-or-flight stance at the piano to his effusive stage banter to the way he conducts the audience in three-part harmony, bringing an improvisational feel to a medium that’s often excessively staged. And the almost two-hour show last night definitely had moments that matched the energy of earlier tours. At the start, he pounded through four new tracks, with the fight-song—like “Effington” (which he said was inspired by the near-homonymous Illinois town of “Effingham”) and the punchy “You Don’t Know Me” working best. He followed up with “Landed,” a recent hit, and “Annie Waits,” a singalong fave from Rockin’g The Suburbs.   

For the next hour, Folds worked through the rest of the songs from Normal. Always self-aware, he took the time to explain the nature of the real and alternate versions and re-assured the audience that its patience would be rewarded with “old stuff” in the encore. Halfway through the hour of this material, Folds wryly commented that this approach meant a previous show was performed against the backdrop of audience chatter. To be sure, a low din of conversation was heard during portions of the show, and the greenish-blue light of cell phones being checked was a frequent sight.  

The alternate takes offer multiple points of view on each song, but there were still plenty of clever, immediate moments within this complexity. The double-shot of “Lovesick Diagnostician” and “Dr. Yang” was sharp, with Folds’s ever-present humor shining through on “Hiroshima” and the imaginary, beer-soaked world in the alt-version of “Free Coffee,” (bonus points for the distorted amusement-park-piano Folds played on the album version of “Coffee”).

Some would see the “fake” tracks as a way to prevent leaks – early or otherwise - of the “real” album and preserve both the “real” artistic statement, and the business model behind it. But in the last few years, Folds has opened up his artistic process to scrutiny, even releasing in-progress EPs of songs while working on his next full-length. Moreover, Folds is utilizing available technology to offer up overnight live versions on iTunes of the shows on this tour. Embracing the remix culture by releasing multiple versions of each song, he’s eliminating the staid notions of b-sides or bootlegs and saying that all of his work is canonical. And that’s a noble artistic experiment.

But at the Congress, the energy often waned, partly because the audience in this kind of show is asked to be a much more involved listener than at a typical rock show, where it’s often expected to hear a song just one way. Such active listening also requires a purer sound fidelity than the Congress can provide. Simply put, the Congress is a terrible-sounding venue, and for a performer who favors fuzzed-out bass and piano within arrangements that often find the instruments working in heavy competition with each other, it’s the kiss of death. Folds’s voice, sung or spoken, got lost in the fierce echo of the building, or overpowered by the drums. Coaxing an audience through an hour and a half of mostly new, unfamiliar material is always tough; it’s damn near impossible when they can’t hear the lyrics or the music as you intend.

True to his word, the encore of the show was a nine-song tour-de-force of almost all old songs, including “Boxing,” “Fair” and “Kate.” Audience energy has always been a crucial part of a Ben Folds show, and it came rushing back as mobiles were left in pockets and purses for the last half hour (though why he chose to end the show with a dud like the alt. version of “Frown Song” is anyone’s guess).

Never a conventional pop songwriter, Folds deserves credit for challenging both the accepted wisdom of the album and live show. If it requires multiple takes for him to express the ideas behind Way To Normal, so be it. But fitting all of them into the limits of a live performance may not be possible.

Only those who catch his tour at a more sonically-pleasing venue can say for sure. 

Set list
(Note: The songs as listed below are the album versions, unless otherwise noted)

“Way To Normal"
“Brainwascht”
“Effington”
“You Don’t Know Me”
“Landed”
“Annie Waits”
“Cologne”
“Lovesick Diagnostician” (alternate version of “Dr. Yang”)
“Dr. Yang”
“Hiroshima”
“Frown Song”
“Kylie in Connecticut”
“Free Coffee”
“Free Coffee” (alternate version)
“Zak and Sara”
“Bitch Went Nutz” (alternate version)

ENCORE:

“The Luckiest”
“Emaline”
“Boxing”
“Fair”
“Kate”
“Still Fighting It”
“Rockin’ The Suburbs”
“Not The Same”
“Frown Song” (alternate version)