On Sunday night, the final evening of the 2024 Three Rivers Arts Festival, Pittsburghers streamed onto Fort Duquesne Boulevard downtown. Some carried camp chairs, some carried blankets, and some only carried the dream of hearing some great tunes. And their dreams came true.
They were all there to see Ben Folds, the singer-songwriter-pianist who broke onto the scene with his group, Ben Folds Five, in the 1990s. Their biggest hit was 1998’s “Brick,” which reached No. 17 on the Billboard Top 40.
Folds’ career has spanned genres and decades and has produced a parade of sometimes-witty, sometimes-sad and always-beautiful songs. And Pittsburgh got to see him for free on Sunday. This show was part of his “Paper Airplane Request Tour,” meaning that attendees got to submit requests via paper airplanes (or, in the case of this outdoor show with dicey weather, paper wads) to him onstage.
While this format produced some impressive musical whiplash, it also got Folds to play some fan favorites — and some of his best songs. As the audience amassed, droplets of rain began to fall, but this didn’t deter fans or the artist himself. It was just Folds and his piano onstage, and that was all he needed to rock the whole street.
He opened his set with “Capable of Anything,” from his 2015 album “So There,” a collaboration with chamber ensemble yMusic. After the next song, “Annie Waits,” he called out to the crowd, “Thank you very much, kind people. I tried to stand up .
