Editor's Note: This article is first in a series of profiles on artists performing at the 2008 Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival. 

Ben Folds will perform at Bonnaroo 2008. Photo/BenFolds.com

He is a showman of the highest measure, the kind that demonstrates laughing disregard for rules and their perverted cousins, industry standards.  At a live show—in addition to the meandering melodies, layered lyrics, and moderately sarcastic vocals any owner of Rockin’ the Suburbs should reasonably expect—a choral audience will be conducted by Folds atop a Marshall stack; an offhand comment will be improvised into an imposing solo; and yes, a stool will be thrown at a piano.

His on-stage energy suggests that, like his cartilaginous counterpart, Folds needs to keep moving to keep breathing.  Pop fans get confused because they can identify that mad, tinkly piano jam in their head without a moment’s effort.  They assume, reasonably, “I remember this from weeks of hearing it on the Top 40.”  In actuality, Folds has never penetrated Billboard’s Hot 100, but one senses from his detachedly suburban and mildly depressive tones that he likes it that way.  He doesn’t recite hits like some big-mouthed bass.  His work quite simply has more bite to it.

[Folds] defies what we think we know about the certain lines that mark off categories like “Pop” and “fun” and “underground.”Everyone knows that the only thing that rescues a band from the Pop millstone is a measure of individuality.  For all Folds’s showmanship, lower album sales is surely not all that distinguishes him from your Gavin DeGraws and Alicia Keyses.  For one thing, Folds excels at an instrument—several, in fact—including the piano, drums, guitar, bass, and vocals on his first solo album.  His piano virtuosity overshadows the fact that he attended the University of Miami’s prestigious School of Music on a drums scholarship.  I don’t mean that top artists aren’t any good (though I just implied that they can’t, as a rule, be that good).  But a free market only rewards specific things, and any music economist (if they exist) will tell you that conformity is one of them, perhaps the only one.

Still, Folds is not merely a musical cut above his Pop comparators (Poparators?).  He imbues his songs with a certain idiosyncrasy that comes directly from within.  He sings of Stan, Fred Jones, Zak and Sara, Annie, and one angry dwarf: distinct, insular, flawed, and therefore lovable characters.  His songs tell stories seemingly straight from their writer's own quirkiness.  His raw talent dovetails with his on-stage nerdiness, making it the kind you can trust, identify with, relax in.  He’s even close friends with William Shatner—the true dream of many a nerd—with whom he collaborated on a little known but aptly titled side-project, Fear of Pop.

It’s no wonder critics have no idea where to place Folds.  His music is catchy, but betrayed by the expertise required to write and perform it.  His showmanship is unparalleled, yet includes clever dialogue with the audience as much as open-palm banging upon a grand piano’s keys.  He defies what we think we know about the certain lines that mark off categories like “Pop” and “fun” and “underground.”  So if he’s not conformist, beyond Pop, in no way predictable, and never boring, where does he fit?

He fits at Bonnaroo.  An open stage, a carnival atmosphere, and a teeming audience will embrace Ben Folds like a net to fish.  Or rather, a shark—because after an hour together, you know that net will never be the same.  It’ll dance, writhe, be torn up inside, and, oh yeah, it’ll rock.