I had the awesome opportunity to see Ben Folds with The South Dakota Symphony Orchestra over the weekend and it was amazing.

I had a friend with an extra ticket and I was set!

I have to admit, I'm not the biggest Ben Folds fan, obviously, I knew "Brick" from his days with Ben Folds Five, and I was familiar with some of his solo stuff during my time doing college radio, but it was an opportunity to see live music so I jumped at the chance. Plus, I knew Ben Folds was a funny guy from his time spent as judge on The Sing Off. This guy really knows his stuff when it comes to music.

Anyway, it was an awesome concert. Anytime you add strings to any song it makes it 87.9% better. If you have an opportunity to see The South Dakota Symphony Orchestra at any of their concerts, I highly recommend it. They played a couple concertos and I was mesmerized. Hearing the music live and fill a room is such an experience.

However, Ben Folds added a fun piece of comedy as well. He had some great stories to tell about his songs and his life. The one that really stuck out was about his time at University of Miami. He had a music scholarship for drums and ended up getting kicked out. The story goes that the night before his jury, which is the equivalent of a final for a music student, you had to sight read and play a prepared piece and fancy know it alls tell you if you're good enough, well the night before, someone looking for his roommate beat him up! He ended up in the ER with a broken hand and a messed up face! Ben Folds was actually dropped off for his jury in a cop car! He thought for sure they would let him reschedule or cancel the jury, but his professor, in all his wisdom, said he had to perform. He said that it was a teaching moment because if you were a professional musician you can't just cancel gigs.

Seriously, though, don't professional musicians cancel gigs all the time for various reasons? Anyway, he failed and got kicked out. He then, threw his drums in a lake!

But he went on to make music his own way so it all worked out!

However, I digress, the point of this whole thing is that there is so much great talent here in the Sioux Empire! The South Dakota Symphony Orchestra has another event coming up "The Fellowship of The Strings" the weekend of March 11th. This concert will feature music from The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and Pirates of the Caribbean, just to name a few.


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