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News Release

Last modified: Monday, August 24, 2009

Ben Folds to play IU Auditorium Sept. 27

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Aug. 24, 2009

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Ben Folds will perform at Indiana University Auditorium Sunday, Sept. 27, at 8 p.m. The show is presented by IU Auditorium and NiteLite Promotions. Tickets are $27 for Indiana University students and $37 for the general public and go on sale Friday, Aug. 28, at 10 a.m. Tickets are available at the IU Auditorium box office, IUauditorium.com, Ticketmaster.com, all Ticketmaster outlets, or charge by phone at 800-745-3000. IU Auditorium is located at 1211 E. Seventh St. Australian singer-songwriter Kate Miller-Heidke will open the show.

Widely known as a pianist, Ben Folds began his career in music as a drummer and also plays guitar and bass. He is best known as a solo artist and as the frontman and pianist of Ben Folds Five, celebrated for a unique compositional style and playing technique that combined elements of the "singer/songwriter" genre, jazz and power rock. Ben Folds' music evokes an edgier Joe Jackson or Elton John.

In addition to Folds on piano and vocals, the group Ben Folds Five also included a bassist and a drummer. The outfit's sound was more akin to power popsters, but like punk bands, Ben Folds Five put on a high energy, blistering live show. The band was signed to an independent record label, resulting in their self-titled debut one year later. Their second album, released through Epic in 1997, Whatever and Ever Amen, included the ballad "Brick" that broke the band commercially.

While 1998 didn't see a new studio album by the band, Ben Folds Five's former label issued a 16-track rarities collection (Naked Baby Photos), as Folds released his first solo album, Volume 1, under the pseudonym Fear of Pop. Ben Folds Five regrouped with 1999's The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner, a more mature work than its predecessors, although the energetic lead-off single, "Army," showed that Folds' humorous approach hadn't dulled at all.

Ben Folds Five broke up over artistic differences in 2000, and the first Ben Folds solo album, Rockin' the Suburbs, was released in 2001, with Ben playing most of the instruments himself. The record went on to sell more than half a million records worldwide. A year later he released a live album, Ben Folds Live, and in 2005, his critically acclaimed solo album Songs for Silverman was released, which featured the Adult Top 40 hit "Landed." In 2006, Ben released supersunnyspeedgraphic, the lp -- a compilation of tracks from the Internet-only EPs, B-sides, one song from the animated film Over the Hedge and his seminal crowd favorite -- an inspired cover of Dr. Dre's "Bitches Ain't Shit," which climbed to No. 71 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and became the No. 1 most-downloaded song in Europe in early 2007.

2008 saw the release of Ben's next solo studio album Way to Normal, featuring the hit duet with Regina Spektor "You Don't Know Me." In early 2009, he remixed and remastered the tracks, and together with a disc of stems to the songs so fans could do their own remixes, he put out the double disc Stems and Seeds. On April 28, 2009, Ben released a collection of his songs sung a cappella. This record, Ben Folds Presents: University A Cappella! features 13 university a cappella groups from across the United States as well as one high school group. Consistently touring, Ben Folds has earned a reputation for his wit, musicality and charismatic, energetic live shows and for being a leader in youth-oriented worlds of developing technologies and trends.

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