I Was Once Part Of Your Orange

March 9, 2010 - The Orange Peel

Major adventure getting from Nashville to Asheville. There was a rockslide on the main road between Knoxville and Asheville and the road was closed at the North Carolina border. We had to turn around and attempt to figure out another route. My first try took us immediately into Deliverance country on a tiny road called Cripple Creek. Eventually on a dirt road with a cliff on one side and a ditch on the other the GPS gave up and instructed us to turn around. A sad old dog sitting on the porch of a shack with a rotting car in the yard watched and I attempted to turn without falling in the ditch. I think there may have been banjos playing in the background.

We ended up driving on a smaller road up through the Smokies on a frighteningly switchbacked "highway" where the posted 55 mile and hour speed limit probably results in numerous traffic deaths every year. Passing through Hot Springs, NC (not a spa town no matter how much they want it to be) we finally reached Asheville.

Tuesday morning we picked up our traveling companion at the airport in Charlotte and, not having anything better to do, ended up at The Orange Peel several hours early. We wandered around the area for a little bit (in the opposite direction than I intended to go because apparently I can't properly read a map) then settled in for a long wait at the club.

We did get to hear soundcheck pretty clearly through the walls again and got a nice taste of the Asheville venue song. They were obviously attempting to re-learn it. We had only just figured out the line about the French Broad river the day before (it always sounded like French Frog to me) after crossing over in several times on our trip through the mountains.

We also got to hear No One Knows My Plan (very exciting since we haven't heard that in about a year and a half) and an amusing mixture of Meet the Elements and Everything is Catching On Fire. Got to hear JoCo warm up Future Soon as well.

Finally got into the club and got a free The Else poster for no apparent reason, then picked a spot on the right side of the stage by the electric kit. The Orange Peel is pretty massive and built like a big barn with high ceilings and the most enormous circular fan I have ever seen. The blades were like helicopter propellers. The stage was also pretty massive, in stark constrast to the tiny one in Nashville.

JoCo did pretty much the same set except he subsituted Creepy Doll for Betty and Me. He warned us before hand that the song was scary and it we were sensitive we might want to cover our ears. I really enjoy his explainations of Mr. Fancy Pants, about how it doesn't make any sense and he isn't sure why there is a fancy pants contest and how it's actually quite sad because Mr. Fancy Pants looses and has nothing left. Then he proceeds to do a mash-up of Single Ladies and the Super Mario Brothers theme in the middle of the song which is pretty nerd-tastic.

The TMBG setlist was as follows: Meet the Elements - Memo to Human Resources - Istanbul - Dr. Worm - Clap Your Hands - Where Your Eyes Don't Go - Ana Ng - Hearing Aid - Shooting Star - Stalk of Wheat - We Live in a Dump - Birdhouse - No One Knows My Plan - WDTSS - WDTSRS - Mesopotamians - Damn Good Times - Dig My Grave - West Virginia - Unsupervised - Dead - They Might Be Giants. Encore - Asheville - Sexxy Encore 2 - Particle Man

The Johns had a running conversation about why they liked The Orange Peel so much, always coming back to the architecture. The decided later that it might also be the people. "And by the people we mean the architects. And the bartenders." Linnell also tried to chip in the guys selling t-shirts but Flans ignored him.

Flans also commented on their being fewer beards in the audience on this trip but that the beards present were bigger because the guys were committed to the beard. Linnell tried to suggest that perhaps the beards that were missing had been added to the present beards and started trying to figure out some sort of beard ratio but he let it go.

Following Clap Your Hands Linnell feared for the safety of his coffee cup resting on his keyboard. "I feel like we must have realized this before but is this a sprung floor? I almost just lost my coffee on that last song." People were stomping before the first encore as well and I could see the keyboard swaying on stage. Yikes!

The Avatars instructed us to tell the staff to lock the doors because we were all in sock puppet prison now. They also told the band they would be paid in Unobtanium. They wanted to thank their producer, Mr. James Cameron, who they said is a super nice guy. They also said the Giants are super nice guys,"just like James Cameron, meaning not at all."

Flans puppet thanked us for coming and admitted that their shows haven't been going very well and started to sob into the camera. He managed to crack up, not only the audience, but the rest of the band as well.

He also stuck his face in the camera lens and said this was the closest he had ever been to a camera and he didn't know that his eye looked like that. Linnell puppet told him his eye always looks like that, he just usually can't see it.

After they finished Stalk of Wheat, on which Curt plays Euphonium, Flans puppet said, "Euphonium, a word you won't hear again in The Orange Peel any time soon."

After they put the puppets down, Linnell ran around the drum to prop up the Meg Ryan cut-out and Flans pointed the camera at it and yelled, "Meg Ryan? What?" Unfortunately, by that point the video screens had been turned off so no one knew what he was talking about. Linnell had to explain that we couldn't see it but Meg Ryan had just been here. It was a strange joke when you could see her and without the video it didn't even make sense.

They played the Everybody Conga song before No One Knows My Plan but did not sing the words and did not actually ask to start a conga line, so no one did. This was kind of sad but also avoided the problem of losing stage spots while conga-ing.

Flans introduced Marty as he moved the the electronic kit for WDTSS and then Linnell randomly said, "Regicide."
Flans:"John, have you been reading your word a day calendar?"
Linnell:"Erm, yes.."
Flans:"What does that even mean?"
Linnell:"Regicide. Death of king of drums."
Audience Member:"We love you Marty!"
Linnell:"That won't help him when he's dead!"

Flans went on to lead a demo of the drum sounds for WDTSS. He said the kick drum sound had been recorded by John Kerry before his unsuccessful presidential campaign.

The WDTSS lines:

Everything on the sun is a gas: iron, copper, aluminum and Meg Ryan.

The sun is 93 million miles away. Fucking 93 mile..million miles away.

The heat and light of the sun are cause by the nuclear reactions of the following 1960s children's drink flavors: rootin' tootin' raspberry, goofy grape, lefty lemon and jolly olly orange.

Linnell also returned to the earlier conversation later, just saying "regicide" in a very dramatic tone.

Flans explained the origin of WDTSRS. He said they have been performing the song for over 20 years, just waiting for them to be ready to release a Science album to put it on and then they gave it to their science consultant. "I really like that sun song, that's my favorite one you wrote.( We didn't tell him it was a cover.) But the title is wrong. And we were like, FFUUCCKK." So they wrote an answer song.

Linnell said the Mesopotamians was about digging up an ancient rock band that had been buried for thousands of years. Then Flans said, "we'll come back and dig you up later" which made them both laugh. Flans explained was a reference to a 70s commercial that probably only he got. Linnell said he got it and Flans said he made the joke just for him. There was also a lady to my right who obviously got it because she was laughing pretty hard too.

After the Mesopotamians, Linnell called Flans over and asked him about rearranging the setlist saying that he needed a break and something about being weak. So they did Damn Good Times and stuck Dig My Grave in, which wasn't on the setlist. Then preceeded through the rest of the setlist as it had been written until the encore.

They came back with Asheville and Linnell explained that it had been written when they were here in 2004 and there had been a big Flood. I was particularly impressed that he played both accordion and keyboard on the song.

They skipped Don't Let's Start which was on the setlist and went right into S-E-X-X-Y. Flans left somewhat abrupting as they were jamming at the end of the song but continued to play off stage and the rest of the guys gradually stopped and left one by one until Dan was the only one still playing with Flans until he was off stage too.

It was a long time before the second encore and they just did a quick shout-out band intro and went right into Particle Man and that was it. Turns out when we got the setlist later, they had been planning to do Electric Car (which I really want to hear)N Subliminal and The Famous Polka. Don't know why they changed there mind but it looked like Flans might have gotten ticked off about something. Or maybe one of them wasn't feeling well. Who knows.

There was more people grabbing the setlist off the keyboard again and this time they took it a step further and also took Linnell's coffee cup. Come on, people. It's rude. Just ask.

I would have liked to hear that encore as planned but otherwise an excellent endeavor. And now we conga our way to Charlotte.