If Anything Was Broke, I'm Sure It Could Be Mended...

October 9, 2009 - The Pageant - St. Louis, M0

Wow! What a gloriously screwed up show! This one will be hard to top for sheer entertainment value.

When we arrived at The Pageant there were only a few people waiting in line outside. We waited outside a window looking in at a side room of the club where the merch table was being set up. I watched Mike, the merch guy, setting up and the Guggenheim guys laying out their CDs. It was pretty cold outside and I was not really looking forward to waiting outside for another half hour. A club employee came out to the line and said that anyone over 21 could still wait in the bar and that people in the bar got to go in first. We decided to wait inside since I was starting to freeze.

Turns out there were about 50 people already in a line inside the bar. I pretty much gave up hope of being stage-side but when we were allowed to go in almost everyone in line chose to sit at the tables that were in rows around the room and only a few people were on the lower level dance floor by the stage. We chose a spot just to the left of center.

The stage was ridiculously high, obviously constructed so that the people at the tables could see over the heads of the people on the floor. Standing next to it I could just rest my chin on it so it must have been about five feet high. This made for some very interesting viewing angles.

This is my favorite club I've seen the band it yet. Between the nice combo of seating and standing, the HUGE stage and the lovely balcony around the whole room, it was just a great layout.

The Guggenheim Grotto performed pretty much the same set as Thursday. I have learned that the piano player is named Kevin and the guitar player is called Mick. Very appropriately Irish. They do a song called Oh, Nikita which has the refrain "oh, Nikita, come and get me, I'm nearly 30." In Detroit, after the song someone in the crowd had asked for a song for someone who is nearly 40, which Mick mentioned tonight. He then commented on the fact that this was the first time he had ever been able to see himself play because he could see himself in the mirror over the bar. Someone in the crowd asked how he looked and he replied "nearly 40." I rather like these guys sense of humor.

Kevin told the sheep story again. The exact line in the song is "let's get naked and get under the sheets." It is a great song with or without the sheep.

I am beginning to wonder how cold it needs to get before Iggy stops wearing shorts because I have almost never seen him in anything else. He wandered about the stage a bit tightening lights with a wrench between the sets.

Before TMBG came on there had been a stuffed bird perched on Dan's keyboard mic stand but it disappeared before the band came on though. Very mysterious!

TMBG came out with, big surprise, Meet the Elements. They followed with Polk which Flans said had been released on an EP to promote Flood so it fit the theme.

After the first song, Danny needed to adjust the box for his ear piece and lifted up his shirt to reach it which resulted in screams from many of the women and some of the men. Hehe.

Flans made a comment before the Flood set about his voice being too full of menthol cigarettes to sing.

Flans thanked the audience for the sold out show, especially the last 100 people who bought tickets that day. He said it shouldn't make that much difference if the show almost sells out but it is a really nice feeling when it actually does.

They headed into Flood well enough getting through the Theme, Birdhouse, Lucky Ball and Chain, Istanbul and Dead without much incident. And then the trouble started.

Flans went on the mic and began to cry, "warning, warning, warning, leaving Flood." And the puppets took over the show. They are still goind by the name The Avatars. They thanked They Might Be Giants for opening for them and all the practicing they had done to prepare Flood. Flans-puppet spent some time searching for his cigarettes and both went into hacking fits. They thanked James Cameron for making the movie about them but said it wasn't as good as Titanic.

Flans-puppet said they were going to" rock out with our socks out." He then said that the phrase "rock out with our socks out" is TM The Avatars so we better not use it on our blogs or their lawyers will be on our ass before you can say Walt Disney Corporation. Does it count if I use it in quotes?

The puppets did Shoehorn, with Marty on the bells again, and Shooting Star. I find it amusing that the puppets do more singing at the rock shows than the family shows.

Flans made another announcement in his best robot voice that they were resuming Flood before they went back to the regular set. Except they came back in the wrong spot. The played Someone Keeps Moving My Chair, skipping the whole second half of Side A. Linnell even made a comment about starting Side B but didn't realize they never finished A.

Flans realized after the song that they had forgotten Twisting and told Linnell that they had missed something and needed to go back. He started giving him hints even though Linnell kept telling him he knew what it was. First Flans was saying it starts with the farfisa organ then he was saying "she's," several times with Linnell saying "I know, I know, I know what song it is."

So they went back and played Twisting. But then kept going on to to Hearing Aid. My boyfriend and I, as well as the girl next to me, got to play Flans's guitar. Whee!

They did Minimun Wage and Letterbox and then interrupted the show again with more warnings to play Clap Your Hands and Cowtown.

They came back into Flood with Whistling in the Dark which they had to restart because Linnell got the first line wrong. Then Danny went over to Flans to tell him that they had missed something else. Flans told him they'd play it in Chicago and went on to Hot Cha. But then he announced that they were going to do a fast improv version of Your Racist Friend since Danny had reminded him. Danny said that it had been Marty and they all scrambled to get ready for a different song than they were set to play. Ralph was looking very confused at the back of the stage but Danny tipped him off and he had his miniature trumpet ready.

I don't know how they got so messed up but it may have been partially due to the light on Linnell's setlist not working so he culdn't see it. He kept going to look at other people's until Flans noticed and swapped his setlist with Dan's which had a functioning light. That was before they started going back to play this missed songs though so it may not have been related.

After Racist Friend Danny tried to tell Linnell to play We Want A Rock but Linnell said he was just going to play what was next on the setlist and went into Women and Men. Danny ran around after the song telling everyone to play Rock and getting them all confused as Flans went into another Flood interruption and they had to proceed into WDTSS? I think Marty was trying to indicate to Danny that he was at the wrong drum kit and Dan had left the stage entirely.

I know everyone always thinks that people in the band are looking at them during shows. I know I have certainly gotten that impression before. But I think probably 90% of the time they are imagining it. But tonight I a sure Danny was looking at me periodically throught the next few songs. We were both just laughing at the ridiculousness of it. At least in my mind, we shared a certain "wow, this show has gotten out of hand" solidarity for much of the rest of the set.

The nuclear reactions in Sun were not particularly inventive. Linnell said nitrogen, ebo, ebo and ebo. What was fantastic was by this point Danny had just given in to the absurdity and climbed around to the back of Marty's regular drum kit and was banging on the cymbols during the weird noises portions of the song. He was just grinning and being a total goof.

He made another failed Rock attempted before they went into Sapphire Bullets then looked at me and shrugged as if to say "I tried" as Flans said there were only three songs left.

Finally, Flans paid attention to him and they played Rock but at the end of the song Marty reminded Danny that they hadn't done Particle Man either. Danny yelled across to Flans who was about to say they only had two songs left but changed it to 14 when he heard Danny interrupting him again. Danny gave him a very "don't blame me, I'm just the messenger" look. But they played it! Really, how could they not at a Flood show?

After the song Flans asked if they had forgotten to play anything else. "Did we forget to play all of Lincoln before we started?" He made a comment earlier that their Flood shows usually went much smoother and he wasn't sure where this one went wrong.

They introduced They Might Be Giants as the first song they named after themselves and closed with Road Movie with the extra verse.

They came out for the first encore already playing Damn Good Times, then Mesopotamians.

They did the band intros and I hollered especially loud for Danny since he made it obvious once again that the whole band would be lost without him (I have noticed this before - it is just one of the many reasons I love him). I also gave myself a sore throat screaming for Marty which still hasn't gone away. They finished the first encore with New York City.

During one of the encores Flans thanked the audience for coming and pointed out several people in particular. They did Drink! and Fingertips for the second encore but Dan didn't do the Where's Dan thing. Still I've missed it lately so it was nice to have it back.

They handed out more stickers after the show but the sticker thing makes trying to get a setlist near impossible and makes me feel weird about standing around waiting for one, especially since it is Marty and Flans giving out the stickers.

So this may not have been the smoothest running show but it sure was funny. And Danny Weinkauf is my new god. He is just that awesome.