Hey, Hey, We're The Avatars

October 10, 2009 - The Vic - Chicago, I'll - 2 Shows

First off, it is really cold in Chicago. Much colder than I expect it to be in October. Brrr.

We arrived at The Vic after the doors had opened for the family show. Not a problem as we weren't trying to be up front. We got a nice spot off to the left. Couldn't see Marty at all except when he was at the electric kit but otherwise the view was great and I got some nice pictures.

The setlist was pretty much identical to the shows at the AMNH last weekend. They started with "the musician's national anthem," I Never Go To Work, followed by Clap Your Hands. After Clap, Flans said "when I said jump in the air, I didn't mean the people in the balcony," which got lots of "awwws." He also asked that the house lights be turned up a little so that parents could see to wrangle their kids.

Next Flans said they only had one polka in their repetoire which is why it is called The Famous Polka, which they of course played. No lyrics this time. That may have been a one time thing for me.

Flans said he had to move to a different mic so that Danny could sing because "he is a paleontologist. Not an archeologist or a researcher but a real paleontologist."

They played Marty's march to the electric drum kit music and then did a little demo on the kit. Flans said that Christmas had come early for Marty because he got two drum kits on stage. Apparently in the future kids will become accustomed to hundreds of drum kits on stage but by then those kids will all be adults and the show will be called the Drum Lab at the Guitar Center.

Slow version of WDTSS again. They seem to be sticking with slow for now. Linnell played around with more of the spoken parts. Everything on the sun is a gas, including bones, wood, nails, cinder blocks and several other items I don't remember. A million earths could fit inside the sun and be cooked to a lovely golden brown. For the reactions on the sun, he used some stuff, a bunch of things, a lot of little bits and the clutter on those bits.

Flans did the same intro to Pirate Girls that he did at the museum. "This song is about three things: the number nine, pirates - arrr, and girls - arrr." He also taught us how to count to nine again, saying that the last city they had played the song in the audience had trouble getting to nine and got lost around seven. We did several practice runs where the crowd was enthusiastic if not particularly in sync.

Before Bed, Linnell announced that it was his bedtime but instead of going to bed he was going to sing about going to bed. They did the first confetti launch from the old canon just as he cried "Gooooooooo." He made a cute little Fonzie style thumbs up sign to signal the launch.

When Flans introduced Roy G. Biv he said that the song was about the color spectrum but that Roy would not be performing with them.

Marty got his boy band intro to Alphabet Lost and Found. I love watching the bit where he runs around asking all the other guys "where they gonna go to find their letters?" and all the shrugs he gets in response. He collapsed on the stage at the end but Flans assured all the kids that he was just faking.

Flans started the next song saying that way back when they recorded their first album for kids Dan had just bought a new guitar with a foreign name. Dan launched into Fibber Island on his foreign acoustic guitar, which of course led into Zilch.

Linnell did some great accordion mashing at the end of Particle Man. Then they rolled out the puppets. They introduced themselves as The Avatars again but Linnell said the kids probably didn't know what that word meant. Flans said it meant movie which Linnell said wasn't quite right but they went with it. They thanked TMBG for opening then did some schtick with the coffee cup on Flans-puppet's head. They sang Shooting Star then resumed show as usual with the camera pointed at the audience. Seriously, I think those puppets could say the exact same thing every show and I would still laugh.

They followed with My Brother the Ape and Alphabet of Nations. Flans let the kids play his guitar before Older again and they let loose the new confetti machine near the end of the song coating much of the floor and even reaching some of the balcony.

Danny came out to do Balloons and asked everyone to help him with the lyrics. He also thanked the Chicago crowd for always being so great.

Flans had Dan demonstrate the fake sax from the keyboard before Seven to counterpoint Ralph's real sax. But Flans said the noise he played was the fake duck instead of the fake sax. It was rather dying duck-like.

Before the end of the show Flans asked the parents to hoist their kids in the air as if they didn't care about safety so there were lots of kids perched on shoulders for the end of the set. They introduced the band before closing with Doctor Worm.

They came back and did Elements for the encore and Flans announced that the free stickers would be given out, though this time it was the cute Science stickers rather than the bumper stickers. Ever since the museum shows he has been making a point of saying that you can not stick the bumper stickers on your face, even to the adult crowds and he made the same announcement about the Science stickers.

They finished with Istanbul and launched the confetti machine again during the crazy music at the end with Flans standing right in front of it and being completely buried in confetti. I can't even imagine how much confetti they must be going through on this tour. Iggy came out after the show and was scooping great armfuls of it off the stage and back into the machine. I can't remember if I mentioned this before, but I don't think so. After the Ithaca show, one of the theater employees was talking to some fans and said their contract actually stipulated extra help for confetti clean-up. No wonder!

We got right back in line for the night show after a stop back at the car and proceeded to freeze for the next hour while we waited. The theater security had to boot a rather creative panhandler from bugging people in line and she gave them a good line about being allowed to beg if she was 20 feet from a door (which she wasn't) prompting the guys to ask if it was a full moon after she left. I also had a boot a guy who was trying to cut the line in front of me, which I was rather proud of myself for, not being a particularly confrontational person normally. Unfortunately, he found people to let him into the line not too far behind us.

We got an excellent spot on the right side of the stage (we've been trying to alternate) next to the same couple we had been next to at the family show. We are not the only crazy adults who go to the family shows!

Guggenheim Grotto did the exact same set again. I figure they will probably do the same one all tour. The guitar player, Mick, has this clever wooden thing on the floor he uses for percussion. Its a flat piece of wood with two one by one long blocks of wood bolted to it and it is mic'd somehow and plugged in. It basically amplifies his foot taps so he came provide rhythm on some of the songs. Don't know if it is something they made or a percussion tool I have't seen before but it is quite effective.

The stuffed bird from the previous night reappeared except it seems to be plastic rather than stuffed. It also has a lot of friends. There are eight or ten of them placed all over the stage. I think they are plastic mourning doves. There does not seem to be any explanation for them but then again that is not surprising with TMBG.

There was a guy standing behind us to the right who had a marker board that said TMBG Sign Guy on it with an arrow. I thought it was kind of funny but apparently I missed most of the joke because at the end of the show when Flans was thanking the audience he thanked "the guy providing the cue cards all night." Apparently he kept changing the message on the board and holding it up for the band to read. I am sorry I did not realize earlier so I could see what other things he wrote on the board. The messages I saw at the end were "Hey, guys, wanna be friends? I've got a Wii" and something asking Flans if he remembered talking to the guy in 1997. Clever, though it might have gotten annoying after a while, especially if you were standing behind the guy.

They started with Elements and Polk again. They said they would be doing Flood in sequence with some pledge drive interuptions. I was very curious to see, after the previous night, if they managed to get Flood right this time. They didn't.

At the beginning of the Flood set, they were talking and about to go into Theme From Flood. At the same time Flans started to sing the first line, Linnell kept talking making for a very humorous false start. We got thoroughly guitar blasted during Birdhouse as both Dan and Flans came and stood directly over us to play. The popping sound in Lucky Ball and Chain has been disappointingly quiet since that first Flood show at LPR where it was shockingly loud. Ralph not only laid down on the floor to play during Istanbul, he actually slid himself across the stage on his back. It looked really cool. They once again made it as far as Dead before the first interuption.

Flans did his robot style "warning, warning, leaving Flood" and out came The Avatars. They introduced themselves, thanked TMBG for opening, then did some more coughing. Flans-puppet said he had a menthol cigarette stuck in his throat. They said that for now they could only perform TMBG songs because that was all they knew but that they their debut album would be out next year, tentatively titled Rock Out With Your Sock Out. There was another Mystery Science Theater comment as well and I am sure the coffee cup was mentioned again as Flans-puppet is obsessed with it. The Avatars dubbed their obsessive fans Avatar Zombies and Flans-puppet began crying "brains" repeatedly throughout the segment. Flans also kept saying it periodically throughout the rest of the show. Braaaaaiiiins!

They introduced Shoehorn as being from the album before Flood but couldn't remember what it was called because one of them only remembered the name of the band on the album and the other had it on a tape someone had made for him. They said they would have to get it on a bit torrent. Marty did an excellent job on his bell playing but they need to get a spotlight on him. I feel like people don't notice him because he isn't lit and they are all focused on the puppets.

They did Shooting Star with a bit of ad libbing at the end that they have been doing for the last couple of shows. They go off on a riff about the star calling and pick up the phone. Just makes the whole bit even funnier.

Flans made a returning to Flood announcement and they started back...with We Want A Rock. At least they got back in a song earlier this time. Flans and Dan seemed to realize immediately that they had flubbed it again because they were looking at each other, shaking their heads and laughing. I'd love to know if all the missed songs are also missing from the setlists or if they just keep forgetting to play them, but the setlists are really hard to get a hold of now with the sticker distribution.

If it weren't for Dan's and Flans' reactions tonight I would have said the order was intentional because they never said a word about missing the songs and slid them all in seamlessly, in order, later in the show. I never even saw them saw anything to each other off mic about playing them. Perhaps they had a contigency plan in place before the show in the event they missed a song. Or three.

They moved on to Someone Keeps Moving My Chair and Hearing Aid, (the guy next to me was the only one who got to play the guitar) and Minimum Wage. Then, I believe before Letterbox, Linnell, coffee cup in hand, said that he missed the talking portion of the show where he could just relax and it was just him and his coffee on stage. So Flans said "how bout those baseball play-offs? Not that we know anything about them." He said Marty was the one who followed baseball and that he was like Rain Man with the baseball stats and stuff. They said that the other night they almost didn't go on stage because the Yankees were in extra innings. They apparently told Marty, "they're going to win" and Marty told them to shut up. Linnell checked with Marty to see if that was actually what had happened and Marty said that was pretty much right. Then their manager, Scott, came in and asked them what the hell they were doing and why they were sitting back here watching TV."Get out on stage. There are people out there." It may not come across in my retelling but the whole story was really funny.

On through Letterbox, then another interruption for Clap Your Hands and Cowtown. Then back to Flood for Whistling in the Dark. As the proceeded on to Hot Cha and Women and Men I began to wonder if they were just going to skip the three missed songs entirely.

They stopped Flood again for WDTSS. Danny seems to have enjoyed playing with Marty's drums because he actually got up on the drum platform with the mallets and banged away in time with Marty on the electric kit after each of the nuclear reactions.

They finally went back and played Your Racist Friend, Particle Man and Twisting without ever mentioning that they were out of place. I never even heard anyone in the crowd yelling at them that they had missed songs like they did in St. Louis. The mixs up were much less disruptive this time.

From Twisting they resumed the end of Flood, finishing with Sapphire Bullets, They Might Be Giants and Road Movie. I was amused that during Road Movie while waiting for his time to play, Danny was just chillin' sitting on Ralph's platform at the back of the stage drinking his beer. When the band left the stage at the end of the song Danny stopped to finish off his beer before he left the stage. Everyone was so relaxed for this performance, I think this is just the perfect example of it.

They did Damn Good Times for the first encore. When Flans started the band intro riff he was doing this whole schtick about using communication to communicate the names of the individual band members to us. Mesopotamians closed out the first encore.

At the beginning of the second encore Flans began introducing Drink! and said that for some reason it hadn't gone over well when they had played it at the family show. The family audience just did not get into the audience participation part and they couldn't understand what the problem was. This was made even funnier by several people in the crowd yelling at him that they hadn't played it at the family show. It was a joke,people!

Flans gave us instructions for the audience participation portion of Drink! He wanted the balcony to do one "drink" and the floor to do the other but couldn't decide which order to have us go in. He tried to have us vote but everyone just made a lot of noise without indicating which order they wanted. So he tried to have us say "yay" after the option we liked but they couldn't hear a difference in the response. He ended up deciding the floor should go first and let the cries flow up.

Once, he got into the song though, he forgot the second verse. He started apologizing before the band had even finished the end of the song but said it was OK because they had lots more songs they could play. Linnell, who was still holding the accordion, started playing Ana Ng, obviously unplanned. The rest of the band scrambled to begin the song. Dan was holding the wrong guitar and didn't have time to change. Marty made a mad dash to his regular drum kit on the other side of the stage. Once the other guys had picked up the intro, Linnell went to drop off the accordion and switched to the keyboard while Marty got situated. I was sorry he didn't attempt to play it on the accordion but it was cool enough to hear the beginning.

They finished with New York City to thunderous applause. I can see why they like the Chicago crowds so much. The room was loaded with energy.

I'll attempt to get the Madison write-up done tomorrow. I can't believe this trip is almost half over already. We had out first non- show day today. I am getting so used to at least a show a day it felt weird not going to one tonight but I'm sure my eardrums appreciated it. The Chicago show was LOUD!