Why Is The World In Love Again?

October 2, 2009 - Albany, NY - The Egg - Flood!



We managed not to miss the entrance to the parking garage on this trip to The Egg. Yay! The security guard at the garage entrance asked me if the band played jazz. I don't know how he knew we were there for the concert. Actually, we realized later that he apparently mistook us for road crew, which explains the questions about the band he was asking, (I didn't even have my hoodie visible) and why he didn't charge us to park like he was supposed to. That makes me two for two on the free parking for this trip as the garage on Thursday had the gates open.

We got to The Egg early and met up with a friend we made at the show in Portland in June (which I will do a write-up on at some point, I promise). The show was general admission so we wanted to make sure we were there early to get a spot. While we were standing in the lobby Flans walked by us coming in from the parking garage, loaded with stuff. We tried not to look to obvious while we gawked. We also made a new friend while we were waiting, who had come by herself. Hi, new friend! We couldn't figure out where to wait since you have to ascend into The Egg via elevators and the elevators stopped on two levels. We settled for the upper level. Unfortunately, most every one else chose the lower level and there was a whole elevator full of people that got in line before we did. Oh well.

Our elevator stopped on the stage entrance level on the way up to the theater even though know one was getting off. The doors opened and there was Danny sitting at a table eating dinner, looking rather surprised to suddenly see a whole elevator full of fans. Dan was getting into another elevator at the back of the room and Ralph Carney was walking by and waved at us before we continued our ascent.

There were two lines to get into the theater and we picked the one on the far side because there were only a few people in it. When they opened the doors we were able to get "front row"seats though a big open dance floor had been put in, in front of the seats so it was obvious that front row wasn't going to mean anything. We were expecting people to wait until TMBG came on before rushing the stage but a whole bunch of people ran up when the opening act came out so we didn't get the best spot. We were all the way to the left in front of Marty and the brand new confetti canon (it was pretty much pointed at my head).

Same opening act. Still weird. Peter seemed a bit more put together tonight. He didn't need sheet music to remember the lyrics (though he still forgot some) and he was able to get through complete coherent sentences between songs. He also didn't start laughing randomly in the middle of songs quite as much. He confirmed that Zoe is, in fact, his daughter and that these were the first shows they had performed together. Perhaps I should contribute some of the weirdness to nerves. Maybe.



TMBG came out to their new "Sammy Intro"and launched into Meet the Elements again. This song sounds fantastic live. It is my second favorite on the album, next to Paleontologist. It has such a great rhythm.

Then we got to Clap our hands and jump in the air. I had more room for jumping today so I wasn't worried about stomping on people's feet. Either before or after Clap, someone over on Flan's side of the stage had apparently hit another fan while dancing. Flans told everyone to be quiet and said that wasn't going to happen at this show and that they could stop the show at any time if it did.The ultimate fan advocate! They were back to the fast version of WDTSS? again. Seems appropriate since that is the version on the new album.

Flans told Linnell to talk about the new album while he was getting ready for the next song. Linnell seemed momentarily caught off guard then said he been planning to make a joke about hitting people in the face but it didn't seem appropriate any more. Then he did actually talk about the new science album before they played My Brother The Ape and Science Is Real. The latter still sounds odd live; I think it has something to do with the electric drum kit.

They did the new slightly techno sounding version of James K. Polk with Ralph playing The Thing. It really works quite well as a substitute for the singing saw.



They launched the puppet segment next which was even better than the night before. It seems that The Lab actually refers to any time Marty is at the electric kit and the puppets are just a piece of it. To kick it off the Flans-Puppet presented the Linnell-Puppet with a homemade certified platinum Flood album from the RIAA. The "album" was a CD stuck on a piece of yellow construction paper with Flood and Platinum written on it. Much sobbing insued from Linnell-Puppet as he accepted the award. The in a complete turn around Flans-Puppet accused Linnell-Puppet of illegally distributing the Garrison Keillor audiobook Aw, Shucks and told him he would have to appear in court. The flip side of the Flood award had a picture of Garrison Keillor on it with Aw, Shucks under it. Linnell-Puppet was very affronted. There was also an amusing attempt to accept the award in the puppet's mouth since they don't have hands. Eventually the puppets sang What Is A Shooting Star? together.



They closed out the pre-Flood set with Albany, The Egg venue song. Really, what were they thinking? They left the camera displaying the audience on the screen but it went all psychedelic and squiggly around the edges and Flans joked about giving the audience seizures and eventually had Dan turn it off.

Linnell could not figure out how to introduce the Theme From Flood and they eventually just launched into it. There was a guy standing behind us that was rather annoying because he was singing too loudly throughout the entire show. At times he was almost drowning out the band. But he was a only a minor annoyance.



It seemed like they flew through the Flood set though that may have just been me. Ralph did the clarinet intro to Istanbul again and then the sax outro complete with more rolling on the floor while playing. I hope to get some pictures of him doing this at some point but he was on the other side of the stage.

Linnell completely flubbed up the lyrics to Your Racist Friend. He was kind of muttering along at a few points while Flans confidently sang right through.

When Flans instructed everyone to clap at the beginning of Particle Man he told us we had to keep clapping no matter what, even though the music was going to stop.

After Particle Man, Linnell made a comment about how they had to pause before the next song because they were used to having to flip over the record. Flans had to tell him that actually, they weren't at side two yet (this was particularly funny as their setlists had Side Two written on them in the right spot, which Linnell obviously didn't notice). Flans did one of those "back in the day" things explaining that music used to come on records and Linnell said that the first copy of Flood he bought had been on a CD so he was making the whole thing up for dramatic effect or something like that.

They finally played Twisting and We Want a Rock in the right order again. I think they figured out that since Linnell has been playing We Want a Rock on the keyboard instead of the accordion lately there was no reason to have them flipped. There was also a girl a few people down from me holding a rock with a string tied around it. Neat! By the way, same person made a comment on the TMBW that they didn't think the band had noticed the rock but Linnell definitely did because the only reason I noticed it was because I looked over to see what he was looking at in the audience. He was smiling so he obviously appreciated it.



At the end of Rock, Flans said he thought they should have some special switiching-to-side-two music, which led to a little debate on stage about what they could play. Then Linnell made a joke about how they actually plan all their shows on stage in front of the audience.

At some point at the end of one of the songs right around here one of the Johns (I think it was Flans) commented at the end of a song that "that big finish made me think of Mel Gibson." This earned a big "HUH" from the rest of the band and the audience and a great moment of Linnell looking at him with a great "what the heck are you talking about" expression on his face. He never really did explain himself. But the joke did come back later when they said they expected Mel Gibson to appear in the theater. Very odd.

Also at the end of either Someone Keeps Moving My Chair or Hearing Aid, Linnell went over to Marty and said something like "don't use the ____ until Hot Cha" (Marty had obviously played something wrong but I missed exactly what it was) to which Marty responded in a kid's voice "stop yelling at me." It was very cute.

After Minimum Wage this idiot next to me started yelling for them to play Dirt Bike. My friend turned around and told him they were playing Flood and to shut up. Thank you! Flans said "no, we are not going to stop in the middle of a Flood set to play Dirt Bike." Someone else in the crowd yelled out a joking request for Apollo 18 and Flans said they'd just stop and play all of Apollo 18 and then finish Flood. He was laughing by that point but seemed annoyed at the Dirt Bike guy.

On Whistling in the Dark Flans played both the bass drum and the cymbal from the electric kit with his arms stretched out to either side. He looks so much more comfortable now that he doesn't have to lug that big bass drum around.



Linnell kind of forgot what he was doing at the beginning of Women and Men and messed up the first verse then laughed his way through the end of it before he got himself together again. I think he hadn't been quite ready to start playing yet.

They set off the confetti canon during They Might Be Giants. I saw the guy crouching next to it at the beginning of the song but when Flans gave him the signal he didn't see it. Then one of the other techs was flashing a light at him as a signal, which he also didn't see, so the guy started yelling"go" at him which he didn't hear until he came up behind him and yelled it at his head. THEN the canon went off spraying confetti right in our faces. Not nearly as much as the night before. They only put part of a bag in where as in Ithaca a tech had said after the show that the canon had a 50lbs bag on confetti in it. Personally, I was glad not to have a 50lb bag of confetti blown at my head.

At the beginning of Road Movie, Marty signaled to one of the guys back stage to come out to the drum kit, which he did. He crouched down behind Marty and I couldn't figure out what he was doing because Marty was just sitting there playing the tambourine. But when the song hit the big, loud bridge, Marty handed the guy his tambourine and took his sticks from him to play the drums. When it went back to the slow part he reached his hand back for the tambourine and put the sticks down. Turned out he just needed to guy as a tambourine holder to make the transition fast enough. Pretty slick, but the guy sure looked silly crouched down holding a tambourine in the air.



For the first encore they did Alphabet of Nations, The Mesopotamians, band intros and Damn Good Times. The second encore was Drink!, Cowtown and New York City. Many more audience members participated in the Drink call-back tonight which was good to see. And I never get tired of the faces Linnell makes while playing the intro to Cowtown on the clarinet. It is a look of such concentration.



All in all, not quite as good a show as Ithaca but still a lot of fun. They seem to be developing the puppet segment more as they go and I can't wait to see what they do with it in the future. As usual, more picures are on Flickr.

Write-up of the AMNH shows will be up shortly as will the pictures from those shows.

Only two more days until the start of the road trip. Detroit, here I come!