Reverse Order

October 1st, The State Theatre, Ithaca, NY

No cameras allowed at this show so you'll have to do without pictures on this one. Except for this one.

The opening act was Peter and Zoe Stampfel, a truly strange experience. I assume they are father and daughter or possibly even granddaughter. Zoe played a bongo and did a little harmonizing to Peter's singing and guitar. He certainly has a unique voice and playing style. Part folk, part blues, part crazy, senile old man.His songs were mostly off color and ranged from humorously inappropriate - there was one called Stick Your Ass In The Air - to almost offensive, like It's A White Man's World. Zoe really seemed like she was more there to keep an eye on him than to play. The whole vibe was of a old guy who used to be a singer in the 50s escaping from his nursing home to play the gig. He's an old friend of the band having appeared in the Hello Recording Club. He also sings the Fingertips line in Fingertips. Flans said on the radio the other day that they had invited him to open for this whole tour but he only agreed to one weekend. Thank goodness for that. It was kind of funny, especially the banjo version of I Will Survive they closed with but I don't think I could take it long term.

On the TMBG front, big news! They have changed the stage set-up! In a mind boggling move - Linnell is on the left. Sort of center left but still left. Marty's regular drum kit is all the way on the left and his new electric kit is on the right. The horn set up is on a platform in the back center. They have Ralph Carney with them for this tour playing pretty much the entire horn and wind sections. Danny's spot is kind of between the drum kit and the platform though since he has no mic he isn't tied to it and moved around a lot. Flans has most of the center right area of the stage though he moved around too. Dan is at front right, mostly but he now has his own keyboard in the back right corner behind Marty's new electric drum kit. Flans commented that for 25 years he has been on Linnell's left so it was very weird for him to be on his right. He spent a fair amount of time in the front left corner of the stage which must have felt more comfortable for him.

They played an Intro I have't heard before labeled on the setlist as Sammy Intro. It sounded cool but I missed the Stompy one.

They started off with Meet the Elements which I was very excited about. They've played it at a few shows this fall but I hadn't seen it yet. After the song Flans said he wasn't used to playing for a seated audience and invited everyone to the stage. We got a spot right in front of Dan on the right. He also said that since this was the first show on a new tour they would be playing four or five songs for the first time for a paying audience. They really only debuted one song since the rest had been played elsewhere in September but they were played at free shows so I guess that is what he meant.

Flans introduced the next song as being from their least commercially successful effort which means - Venue Songs! They did Los Angeles. Ralph Carney also came to the stage for this one. He played various different saxaphones, a clarinet and an instrument of his own design that Flans called The Thing, throughout the show.He also had maracas shaped like an apple and a banana.

Next up, an exciting first for me, Youth Culture Killed My Dog. They are digging into the oldies for this tour and I ain't complaining. At the end of the song Flans said we had reached the animal portion of the show and they did My Brother The Ape. Linnell commented that this new album was for older children and was thus also more appropriate for adults. I keep being confused when I hear them play this live (they did it on the radio before this) because Linnell always sings "well, I got the information, you sent to everyone" and I could swear on the album he says invitation. Whatever.

Birdhouse appeared early. I guess they are prepping for their Flood run where it kicks things off. It was very ahrd to jump during Clap Your Hands because we were all packed in so tight around the stage. We managed.

Another first for both my boyfriend and I, Where Your Eyes Don't Go! They did four songs from Lincoln which may be a record. Then into Mono Puff territory with Unsupervised.

Before Seven, Flans said that they were just as surprised as we were about their Grammy win and that the standards must have gone down. He also said he was surprised they had been allowed to make an educational album much be rewarded for it.We had to get the audience going on the "we want cake" chants. They were obviously all Seven novices, at least on our side, but they caught on quick.

At the end of Hearing Aid they set off the new confetti canon. It is much bigger and has a fan with it that blows the confetti out. It just kept blowing and blowing a ridiculous amount of confetti. A lot of it ended up in piles in the stage. It did manage to travel all the way across the crowd and onto us though. The guys seemed a little disappointed in it's performance and said this was they first time they had hooked it up.

Marty switched to the electric drum kit for James K. Polk which oddly had no confetti even though they had their small canon hooked up too.Ralph played The Thing during the bridge to imitate the singing saw. It's a mouth piece with a straight piece attached on the bottom and a curved piece on the top that can be pressed to different degrees to make the notes. It is pretty cool and makes a sound that is a cross between a clarinet and a kazoo.

Then they launched The Lab portion of the show mentioned in the recent mailer. They had the bass drum from the electric kit set up on top of a big box behind Marty. It had a camera mounted on top of it that projected on a screen behind the drum and Dan's keyboard. The Johns debated for a minute about how they were going to introduce the segment and then decided to just go for it with no intro. They both stood partially hidden behind the drum and donned sock-like hand puppets that were very cute. The puppets were projected on the screen so everyone could see them. The then proceeded to sing Shoehorn with Teeth with the puppets. Marty stood center stage with a board with three service bells screwed to it and rang they periodically and very seriously. Danny didn't play on this one and reappeared from backstage towards the end of the song and jumped in the air bringing his hand down as if he was ringing the bell, being much sillier than Marty who never even cracked a smile. Between that and the puppets, the whole thing was hysterical.What I would not have given for my camera!

At the end of the song Linnell said he felt they should attempt a duet with the puppets ans suggested Maybe I Know. Flans asked if he could play it on the keyboard while doing the puppet and Linnell wasn't sure. Flans suggested something else which Linnell was even less confident about then Linnell said "how about this" and started To All The Girls I Loved Before which Fans joined in on. Between verses Linnell sang a line about having trouble playing the keyboard and moving the puppet mouth at the same time. Flans seemed to go further through the song than Linnell had intended to. They had also swung the camera around to show the audience on the screen while they were singing. Flans called an end to the segment after the song though apparently, according to the setlist it was supposed to go several songs longer.

Flans pulled out a chair and an acoustic guitar for the next song and talked about how their new album discusses evolution and the Big Bang and except for some "haters" on YouTube there hasn't been a lot of controvercy. And yet every time they do an interview the reporter says, "wow, evolution, that's controvercial." He then attempted to start Science Is Real which he has to sit down to play. He stopped it almost immediately and declared a do-over. He had to start it twice more before he got it. There was some feedback coming off of one of the instruments so the song didn't sound great but it was the only legit debut of the show.

Flans didn't give the audience any instructions on Drink! So the audience reply was a little weak but there were a few vetrans who participated.

They did WDTSS? in the original slow version with Linnell doing the spoken part. He stuck with the real words because he couldn't think of anything good after a moments thought. Marty did some good drum banging to accentuate his words.

Why Does the Sun Really Shine? had a shorter than usual but otherwise typical introduction.

Flans started out Spider with his mic stand raised upsidedown in the air. Somewhere right in this batch of songs Marty switched back to the regular drums but I don't remember exactly where. It was a real shame cameras weren't allowed as I could have finally gotten some great pictures of him since he was right in front of me on the electric.

West Virginia evened out the solo material representation. They set off the big confetti canon again during the guitar solo at the end of Damn Good Times. Then they had a big debate about when in the solo it should have been set off and where on stage it should be placed to get more of the confetti into the audience and less on the stage. Flans thought closer to the edge and Danny suggested on top of the speaker. Linnell said they don't actually talk outside a show so they have to have all their discussions on stage which prompted Flans to say "welcome to our production rehearsal." Don't Let's Start followed.

Awesome as usual. Linnell and Ralph both had their clarinets for Cowtown, which Flans said was the first song they had even played as a band. Ralph switched to sax part way through.

They did New York City before What Is a Shooting Star? which featured Dan on guitar.

Introduce the band signaled we were close to the end. This show went by so fast. I am so glad I have 14 to look forward to :-)

They closed with Istanbul. Ralph did the intro on clarinet but his mic fell off the clarinet and he attempted to hum a few bars while he put it back on. It was a pretty short solo and I missed Dan's guitar intro. For the outro Ralph went nuts lying on his back in the confetti pile on stage and playing sax while kicking his legs around. He had a little trouble getting up though.

They took a long break before they encore. My hands were going numb from pounding on the stage. They started the encore with Alphabet of Nations. I could see Dan's setlist upside down and had been trying to figure out what was written under Alphabet with some question marks but Flans was indicating to everyone on stage to skip the song so it didn't matter (it was See the Constellation that they skipped, written as Contellation on the setlist). They moved on to The Mesopotamians.

For the second encore they did Dead. Then Flans discussed their free podcast and how they had done Cast Your Pod to the Wind which was the best of the free stuff which was in fact so good that you now have to pay for it. They did We Live In A Dump off that collection.

At some point during the encore Flans commented on how long it had been since they had played in Ithaca and blamed the chicken fighting (a girl had gotten up on someone's shoulders in the crowd).

They closed with Ana Ng. We waited around for a while afterwards and eventually got Marty's setlist from the electric kit as well as a poster I found on the floor.Someone was sitting ontop of a chair in the front row while we were waiting (and collecting confetti) and the left half of the front row fell backwards. It was supposed to collapse but still, yikes!

Really great return to the tour circuit. Can't wait to see what they do next. On to the performance orb!