The stage at the Encore Theater at Wynn Las Vegas could hardly have been simpler: a black Steinway & Sons baby grand at the center, flanked by a bench, a lone floor monitor and a stand-up speaker stationed to the right. No elaborate set pieces, no dramatic lighting — just tools of the trade.

When Ben Folds, the bespectacled singer‑songwriter and composer, walked on wearing a blue T‑shirt and khakis, the scene seemed to mirror his unpretentious style. But for the next 80 minutes Saturday night, Folds transformed the mostly bare stage into something far from ordinary.

Folds, who gained popularity in the mid-to-late 1990s with Ben Folds Five, has been touring nearly nonstop across the U.S. since March, and the extensive road time showed in his polished performance. He brought a highly enter

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