In either 1999 or 2000 (wish I could remember) I saw the Ben Folds Five at a packed show at the IU Auditorium in Bloomington, Indiana. Opening for them was a guy and a girl duo (I think they were girlfriend and boyfriend or married, at least I assumed they were.) The guy played a black Flying V guitar, and I really liked them. That’s all I can remember.
Who was that?
Could it have been the White Stripes or the Raveonettes?
The White Stripes are Jack White (guitar) and Meg White (drums). They wear red, white, and black only (and both have pale skin and black hair), and when they were first starting out, there was a lot of (deliberate) confusion over whether they were brother and sister or husband and wife. It turned out they were ex-husband and wife who remained good friends (and I believe HER name was White, but Jack took it as his stage name).
The Raveonettes are a duo from Denmark, with Sune Rose Wagner (male) and Sharin Foo (female). They play what sounds like 1950s rock ‘n’ roll, but with the fuzzy distortion and manic energy of a badass garage band. Sharin Foo is tall and blonde, like a viking or valkyrie warrior woman, so you’d probably have remembered her.
Could it possibly have been Fleming and John?
If the guitarist was using a Flying V, then I doubt it was either the White Stripes or the Raveonettes. Jack White seems to play nothing but an Airline, while Sune Rose Wagner appears to like Jazzmasters and Telecasters.
I think so. A quick web search suggests the gig was on 19 October 1999. This web page, from the previous month, mentions “Ben Folds Five/Fleming & John” tickets.
Also, I don’t know about line-up changes or anything, but when I saw the Raveonettes open for Depeche Mode in November, they had three members onstage.
There were four people on stage – the main pair, a drummer and a VERY animated second guitarist – when I saw them perform on some talk show a few years back.
Fleming & John are very good friends of Ben Folds. Must have been them. Good music…they came out with two albums a few years ago. “Ugly Girl” was a pretty big hit…
It’s a pretty good bet it was Fleming & John. I saw them open for Ben Folds Five in April of that year in New York, probably the same tour. I wish I had Fleming’s pipes, dang!
They performed that one on Conan (the booking agent on the show, IIRC, is a friend of theirs from either college or Nashville), along with a few other songs of theirs over the years. They also performed with Folds and William Shatner on the show when they did the song “In Love”. It was something that was on the Folds/Painter produced Fear of Pop, Vol I (1999?). That’s how Folds, Painter and Shatner got together for Has Been last year.
Fleming has a several octave range (I once knew the exact figure, but have forgotten it over the years.) Have you heard F&J’s cover of ELO’s “El Dorado”? She really shows off her voice on that track of Lynne Me Your Ears.
And on the CD that Agenais refers to (The Way We Are,) John plays 28 different instruments. He also played the accordion on “Kiss Me” by Sixpence None The Richer (and five other instruments on six other songs), and arranged and/or played the assorted non-BFF instruments on those albums (strings, horns, etc.) And that’s just a small list of what he’s done since the mid-'90s. The man is one of the most underappreciated and unknown musicians today.