Though I haven’t done a music review in awhile, I finished this DVD today and quite enjoyed it. Though I have no intention of reviewing DVDs in the future (as my opinions on movies would be, um, not very good), since this isn’t a movie I feel at peace with it.

I’ll be honest, this one passed under my radar. I hadn’t heard about this DVD, and the wife scored a 10 on the gift-o-meter (or as Mike would rate, “candidate for sainthood” on his gift ratings system) with this one.

Normally I’m wary of pop musicians pairing with symphonies. Metallica’s S+M album similarily gave me that swamp-ass feeling, like greasy farts, like something not right but you just can’t pin it down. Perhaps it’s because almost all of those songs are not fit for orchestral arrangement. Surprisingly, this collaboration worked, and worked well. The western australia symphony orchestra (with arrangements done by a handful of local Perth musicians) blended beautifully on almost all of the songs on the disc. There were a few standout moments where the orchestra made itself almost too apparent (and overriding the sentiment of a particular song), but all in all it’s a great disc.

It clocks in at 80 minutes, and features a predictable selection of songs from the BFF days, and Folds’ first solo release. I say predictable because the songs that were picked are quite obvious choices for orchestral arrangement, and that can be seen even on the original recordings. None of the selected songs seemed out of place in this setting.

I was a bit thrown off at first, as I expected to rock the hell out. I have an older Ben Folds Five DVD, from the late 90s (a VH1 session of some sort), and it’s so powerful that the energy almost leaps from the TV. It’s palpable. So when I popped in this disc, I found myself fighting the notion of “I’m not feeling it! What?” But after awhile of reminding myself, I settled down. You can’t compare a dance club and a coffee shop and expect the same ambience. The same thing applies here.

Standout tracks to me were “Evaporated” and “Smoke.” These tracks, on CD, are great and sweetly sentimental, but it’s a cold sentiment. Hard to touch. However, in this forum, with 90+ orchestra members behind him, Ben makes the emotion of both songs pulse and radiate. Beautifully done.

And if anyone has seen Ben live recently, the crowd favorites “Rock This Bitch” and “Not the Same” don’t dissappoint. I won’t spoil it for those who haven’t seen it before (though the latter is much more powerful in person, in an enclosed arena).

Fun, light and a very enjoyable disc, this is not at all a gratuitious outlet on Ben’s part, like many other artist DVDs.