It's Our Pleasure To Serve You

October 11, 2009 - The Barrymore Theatre - Madison, WI

The They Day show! And no, I did not see a single person at this sold out show with They written on their forehead. I was going to but chickened out at the last minute. What I did see was Flans and Marty walking across the street to a diner while I was parking the car.

The Barrymore is tucked in right next to a residential neighborhood in Madison. Seems like it would be ideal if you lived there. Just walk down to the theater whenever there was a good show!

Though this was a theater with seats it was obvious not many people planned to sit in them. We met up with someone I had met online and his kids and got a spot just left of the keyboard. My boyfriend and I ended up moving down almost to the end of the stage to let other little kids get a good view. I admit there were so many cute little kids at this show I kept getting distracted watching them instead of the band. I tried to tell my friend's son that he was in the perfect spot to get to play Flans' guitar but he didn't believe me. But he did get to play it so I won that bet.

There was a little girl next to me playing with a stuffed skunk, making him hop all over the side of the stage. When I tried to drop a piece of confetti on it after the first canon blast the skunk snapped at me and she warned me to be carefuil because it was a biting skunk. Yikes!

There were also two little boys standing behind me who stuffed their noses with confetti after the last blast and stood there watching the end of the show with wads up confetti dangling from their nostrils. So, yeah, good off stage kiddie antics going on.

They played the same setlist as The Vic. It was actually just a photocopied Vic setlist with Vic partially cut off the top. We did, finally manage to get out hands on one after the show.

So the setlist was: I Never Go to Work - Clap Your Hands - The Famous Polka - I Am A Paleontologist - WDTSS? - Pirate Girls Nine - Bed - Roy G. Biv - Alphabet Lost and Found - Fibber Island - Zilch - Particle Man - Shooting Star - My Brother the Ape - Alphabet of Nations - Older - Where Do They Make Balloons - Seven - Dr. Worm Encore - Meet the Elements - Istanbul

At lot of the banter was the same or similar to the day before but I'll recount the new stuff.

Flans made a great point of greeting the people in the balcony whom he couldn't see because the balcony was so far back. He also checked several times to make sure there was enough light for the parents to "do what they need to do" with their kids.

During The Famous Polka, Linnell was walking backward while playinf the accordion and tripped over the corner of a carpet on stage. I thought he was going to fall backward but he caught himself and managed to keep playing the entire time. Impressive! They really should have taped that carpet though because Danny caught his mic stand on it later too.

Before Paleontologist Danny said that they have come to Madison every year and in the twelve years he has been in the band he has never gotten to sing for the Madison fans so he was very happy to be allowed to do so. My friend shouted "about time" at him which he really appreciated.

During WDTSS, Danny got up on the drum platform again and this time stretched out to play both one of the drums and the cymbol at the same time. I think Marty should be concerned that Danny is getting too fond of being a drummer. Linnell added battleships into items that are gas on the sun and the nuclear reactions were caused by the watusi, the fox trot, the two-step and the waltz (said as if it was a much dreaded dance).

When they set off the old confetti canons during Bed, the one of the left by us shot a few clumps into the air (one of which landed on the girl next to me, to her surprise and delight) but most of the confetti stayed in the canon. Danny reached into the canon and took out another wad to throw at the crowd and kicked some confetti off the stage. After the song Linnell, said that the canon had been a bit of a disappointment and they thought they might have to offer a partial refund to the audience: one penny, plus a piece of confetti. I wonder if anyone took them up on it.

While introducing Marty before Alphabet Lost and Found, Flans said that TMBG was just his day job and that he really sang in a boy band called Color Me Sync'd.

During the puppet bit, Flans-puppet was going on about his coffee cup hat again and said the kids might recognize it better if it was turned right-side up. So he turned his head upside-down in front of the camera to display the coffee cup and turned the "It's Our Pleasure To Serve You" message to the camera which Linnell-puppet read it to the crowd. This got lots of cheers.

Flans messed up a line in Shooting Star and changed the next one a little to rhyme better. After the song, he attributed his brain lapse to the popcorn smell in the theater which was distracting him (they were selling popcorn in the lobby).

Before Doctor Worm, Flans said "the next song is about a doctor who thinks he's a worm but is really a worm who thinks he's a doctor."

When Flans made the announcement about the free stickers he made the shocking revelation that they had recently learned that you CAN put the Science stickers on your face. Linnell told the crowd that it wouldn't hurt to put the stickers on but it would hurt to take them off. Flans demonstrated some of the stickers and put the Roy G. Biv sticker on his guitar. He realized after doing it that it might not have been a good idea and said "that's gonna leave a mark" but it was too late to take it off.

They finished with an extremely long lasting confetti blast at the end of Istanbul. It was marked on the setlist as "confetti for a long time."

Fantastic show despite the reused setlist. The band was obviously having a great time as was the crowd.

Indianapolis tonight. I could not be any more center stage. There won't be any pictures from Madison or Indy due to "no camera" rules but I've got great ones from Chicago to post when I get back to my computer.