Ben Folds Five - Hard Rock Live, 1998 (VH1)

Performed on May 8th, 1998, at The Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel, Las Vegas, NV.
Aired on August 7th, 1998 for Hard Rock Live on VH1.
Audio and video remastered by Hollie Taylor.

We would like to give big thanks to Jordan Cooper (‪@jordancooperlalala‬) for allowing us to use and upload their personal transfer of this performance. Definitely check out their channel, as they have other Ben Folds content worth watching!

Hard Rock Live was described by its co-creator as the “polar opposite of MTV Unplugged” playing electric instruments instead of their acoustic counterparts, and replacing the small, cozy setting with a concert stage. Ben Folds Five would take that stage and give an outstanding performance, with energy comparable to their iconic Sessions at West 54th performance from the previous year. Since this show follows a similar model to both Unplugged and West 54th, it is fair to assume that they performed a longer set, but it was cut down in order to fit the show’s hour long slot that they shared with the band Squeeze. We do not have any information on the full set, however. Interestingly, this show may feature the first and only performance of Emaline broadcasted on national TV, due to it being left out of the West 54th TV broadcast.

The major highlight of that night was their explosive performance of Song For The Dumped, in which Ben finishes off their set by throwing not only one, but two stools at his piano. That song was also featured on a CD called “Best of Hard Rock Live”, which has been uploaded on this channel (   • Ben Folds Five - Song for the Dumped ...  ) and a shorter edit, featured on the Best Imitation compilation (   • Ben Folds Five - Song for the Dumped ...  ). The audio from the CD was incorporated into the video.

For the other non-SFTD songs, I had to heavily adjust the tape due to the extremely blown out and compressed audio. Whatever compressor/limiter was applied to this recording had an extremely slow release, meaning the audio was constantly ducking and then going back up in volume. I can't simply restore the dynamic range to the recording, but I took a page from the book of a fellow audio nerd, TopConcern, AKA ‪@Dynamic_Editor‬ and used Perfect Declipper to approximate the dynamic range, and then manually fixed some parts that still have noticeable jumps in volume. After that, I removed the pops and crackles in RX and then did my usual remastering in FL. The video has some minor touchups with color correction and a slight denoiser applied, but scrubbing out any more noise would make the video look terrible, so I settled for an inbetween. Hope it looks and sounds alright!

☆Timestamps☆
00:00 Intro
01:16 One Angry Dwarf And 200 Solemn Faces
05:13 Brick
09:43 Emaline
13:42 Song For The Dumped
19:07 Outro

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