Today we are traveling back to April 19th, 2008 and the rock show at The Egg in Albany, NY. There was a family show in the afternoon that we didn't attend due to work, which is a shame since it featured the live premiere of Seven. Though I do have vivid memories of the concert what really struck me was The Egg itself. You'll see why.
We arrived in Albany quite early, having left straight from work and intended to park and find someplace to eat before the show. On the road driving into the city, you go around a corner and are suddenly confronted with.... The Egg.
This is by far one of the weirdest and most wonderful pieces of architecture ever built. It is so incongruous with it's surroundings. It really looks as if a space ship has landed in the middle of Albany. Just as the song says, you really do have to wonder, "what were they thinking?" We managed to get this startling view twice (you actually approach it from the other side) as we missed the entrance to the garage the first time and had to turn around and drive back out of the city to make another pass at it. The garage is directly under the "performance orb" and we had to take an elevator up to a shopping plaza, then an escalator from The Egg's lobby to get up to the outside world.
Immediately upon stepping off the escalator, I noticed that Dan Miller was standing just outside the building talking on his cellphone. We walked right on passed and didn't bother him like good little fans. If you were to blow up the crappy cellphone photo above about a 100 times you would be able to see him standing just to the left of the entrance. As it is, he's just a dot.
We set off in search of food which proved to be much more problematic than we anticipated. The Egg is right is the center of the state capital buildings of Albany and since it was a Saturday evening and no one was working in that area on the weekend, almost everything was closed. We ended up having to walk about a mile down from the theater to get to a street with any activity on it and got pizza at a slightly skeevy little pizza parlor. The suckiest part was that the walk back was all uphill.
We got back to the theater and from the lobby had to take an elevator up into what I'll call the "saucer" of The Egg. There are two theaters in The Egg, on in front and one in back. This show was in the larger Hart Theater which is, I believe, the one in front. The lounge area outside the theater is all velvet lined and has walls that curve out, following the interior slope of the "saucer." The theater's seating curves upward into the front end of the "saucer" with the stage positioned over the "landing gear."
Our seats were in the second row on the right hand side. We got another set of foam fingers going in, but surrounded by adults this time, I was a little embarrassed to wear it, so set it under my chair. The theater was only about half full so much of the upper tier was empty. When the band came on, Flans invited everyone to came down to the stage immediately and I jumped forward, dragging the boy with me. After not being able to dance at the last show I was eager to join the crowd stage-side. We got a spot right on the stage on the Linnell side, just to the right of the keyboard. I quickly ran back for my foam finger that I had left under my seat since it became apparent that this was not to be a "relax and enjoy the music" show, but a "jump around in the air waving a ridiculously oversized foam finger" show.
The setlist was almost identical to my last show with a few notably exceptions. They did Seven again, after premiering it earlier in the day. It was funny and wonderful, and I especially enjoyed Dan and Flans taking the kids' spoken parts and shouting "we want cake!" Dan has a tendency to make the funniest expressions while doing his lines especially the "it's the green house at the end of the block" line.
They also did Don't Let's Start, which sounded incredible. That is on my Top 10 list of favorite TMBG songs and they don't play it that often these days. Near the end of the show, the band left the stage and the Johns did Maybe I Know acoustic style. I probably didn't fully appreciate it yet at that point, but I love the way their voices blend together, particularly on that song. It was prefaced by the usual story about getting $20 from a relative of Ellie Greenwich while busking with the song on the Brooklyn Promenade.
Most of the between song banter was about what movies various TMBG songs were "actually" written for. I believe some TV shows got in there too. I don't remember any of the combos they came up with but I think something went with either Rambo or Rocky. There was also a joke about Danny having written the interstitial music for Seinfeld which prompted him to play some of those ubiquitous bass notes.
The show had so much energy despite the small crowd and I had a blast bouncing around by the stage. Though this was by no means the best show I have been to, it was one of the ones where I had the most fun. At one point mid-song Flans came out onto the apron right in front of where we were standing and was so close I could have tied his shoes.
Dan Miller did another round of "Where's Dan?" during the I Walk Along Darkened Corridors portion of Fingertips and climbed off the stage, out into the audience and all the way up to the top tier of seats to play his solo in a single spotlight. I find that I have come to expect things like this from him and am disappointed when he doesn't find an interesting place to play from when they do this song. One of the theater employees, actually had to let him out through a side exit at the top of the theater so he could get backstage.
They, of course, played The Egg venue song in the second encore which pleased the crowd immensely. It is one of the few Venue Songs that is really directly about the venue and so appropriate. They closed it out with Birdhouse and Robot Parade. My boyfriend was disappointed to discover that as he has gotten older he is no longer capable of bouncing up and down throughout Birdhouse without serious pain to his knees. Riding high on show energy, I had no such problems :-)
Since we were right by the stage I was able to get a setlist from one of the techs. This seriously impressed the boy as he had been to 16 shows before he started going with me and had never gotten one. We waited a little longer to see if anyone would come out to sign but no one did and eventually the staff cleared everyone out of the theater. I was so pumped after this show I wasn't even drowsy on the three hour drive home despite having been up since 5:30 in the morning.
Hmm, a little late seems to have gotten a lot late while I was writing. I'll try to do better tomorrow. 13 days to go!
Goodnight robot John, Goodnight robot Dan, Goodnight robot Marty, Goodnight robot Danny, Goodnight robot John
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