The Secret Rock Show

March 12, 2010 - Recher Theatre - Towson, MD

Last show of the trip, for me and the boyfriend anyway, though not the last stop. It was a great one to close it out with. We drove from Richmond to Baltimore on Friday morning, intending to visit the Maryland Zoo before the show. Unfortunately, we didn't realize that the zoo was closed due to severe snow damage and would not be re-opening until the next day. Bad timing. The weather was kind of crummy and we couldn't find anything else to do that was either a) not outside or b) easy to get to. So we ended up hanging out at a local Barnes & Noble for a while.

We headed for Towson early, which ended up being fortunate as there was a lot of traffic. Even so we were the first ones at the theater. We staked out a spot right by the front door which was, thank goodness, under the marquee as it was either raining or drizzling the whole time we were outside. The crowd that joined us was not so much a line as a large cluster, with people trying to crowd under the marquee to stay dry. We could see into the venue straight through to the stage and got to watch some of the crew activity. Marty came out our door, at one point, with some friends heading out to dinner.

As we were the first ones into the theater we had our pick of stage spots. We had been debating left vs right outside, having tried both earlier in the week, but discovered upon entering that they had the stage set-up in the pre-fall 2009 fashion with the keyboard off to the right instead of in the center. So we picked dead center giving us a perfect view of everything. The venue had barriers set up on the side of the stage, angled out towards the room. The stage was pretty small so the lighting units were set up on the floor in front of the corners of the stage instead of on the stage where they usually are. The barriers were, presumably, to keep people from banging up against the light stands but they had the odd effect of funneling the audience into the stage, in sort of a wide arrow shape with us at the point. There was only really enough stage frontage to stand the three of us plus two people to the left and a group on the right that were basically under the keyboard, then the sides started to angle. I am probably not describing it well, and you probably do not care. Suffice it to say we had the best view in the house.

There was no opener at this show, as JoCo was already booked for his own show elsewhere. I missed him, but we'll be seeing him at PAX East next weekend so that will make up for it.

TMBG did the same setlist as the Charlotte show, except they substituted the Towson venue song for Drink! and completed the Avatar segment and both encores.

Setlist: Meet the Elements - Memo to Human Resources - Istanbul - Dr. Worm - Clap Your Hands - Where Your Eyes Don't Go - We Live In A Dump - Birdhouse - No One Knows My Plan - The Guitar - Ana Ng - Hearing Aid - Shooting Star - Stalk of Wheat - Towson - The Mesopotamians - Upside Down Frown - Electric Car - Withered Hope - Dead - Damn Good Times - They Might Be Giants  Encore - Alphabet of Nations - Turn Around  Encore 2 - Don't Let's Start - S-E-X-X-Y - Twisting

I still say that Richmond was my favorite show of the trip (if not ever) but that may have been slightly tainted by my post-show experience ;-P That being said, this show was a very close second.

Flans commented on the lay-out of the venue and how he could actually see Iggy because the place he was sitting was raised above the crowd. Flans was admiring his high tech equipment and touch screen computer and wondered, "How are we paying for this shit?"

They asked if it was raining outside when some people said yes and others said no, Linnell commented that, "The people that said no were lying."

I did end up taking some pictures, but I'll admit that at first I was a little gun shy. Between our completely front and center position and the previous night's confirmation that at least some of the band definitely recognizes us now I was a little nervous about sticking the camera in their faces. I mostly got over it. There definitely seemed to be an exchanged look and a comment and a nod in our direction between Danny and Linnell early on, as if to say "Yup, those are the people I was telling you about that have been following us around." Then I looked over at one point and Linnell was squinting at me oddly. I looked away and back again and he was still staring. Best I can figure he was trying to figure out what my t-shirt said (it was my "I heart the bass player" shirt with the heart made from two bass clefs). And yes, I realize that this entire paragraph makes me a huge dork. Moving on....

Linnell figured out early on that the bass levels in the club were turned up quite high and that by using a particularly low effect on his keyboard he could create an "earthquake." He discovered it briefly at the end of a song then later proceeded to see if he could "cause an earthquake with another earthquake." He was trying to see if he could get Danny's bass to play just from the vibration of the room. Danny turned the bass all the way up but it didn't quite work so he wacked it on the back of the neck to make it hum so it would seem like it worked. Man, did the whole room vibrate. The floor was humming and you could feel it in the air. But being by the stage, I think we had the best effect since we could lay our hands on the stage and feel the whole thing vibrating. It was like a little mini-massage! And it sounded like a platoon of tanks driving through. The effect was so popular with the crowd that Linnell did it again and again over the course of the night, always to great effect. He actually shook the stage so much at one point that the cowbell and something else fell out of the shelf in his keyboard stand and lay on the ground for the rest of the show.

Dan's red guitar got knocked over on it's face by someone walking by (it was either Flans or Curt) and had to go back to Dr. Victor to be retuned. So Dan played his snazzy new rainbow guitar for the next song. That thing is flashy! There was a great quote about it in a review I read of the Nashville show where the reviewer said, "We never thought we'd get so excited about such a silly-looking ax." Perfect!

When introducing We Live In A Dump, Flans was explaining that Cast Your Pod to the Wind is now available on iTunes and went into this great riff about how buying it was supporting a great cause and it would mean a lot to a lot of people, like it was a charity donation instead of merchandise. It was pretty funny.

They actually did Everybody Conga before No One Knows My Plan with the words this time. Despite this being the third time they played it on the tour this was the only time they actually got the conga line going. It took a while and a lot of "I'm not fucking kidding" for people to get going but there was a line going through the middle of the club. It fell apart pretty quickly, I think we the people from the back reached the front and realized that if they stopped they would be in a much better stage spot. There was definitely a couple right behind be who were ecstatic with the spot they managed to score.

Linnell said they had had a bunch of pretty great shows all week then recounted a conversation that Danny had overheard from the crowd walking out of The National the night before. There was apparently a couple talking about the show and Linnell imitated them, saying he was probably going to butcher it. "It was good, it was good. I thought it was good. I liked it. Yes, it was good." Or something like that, all said really fast. I can't really get the humor of it across in writing but trust me, it was funny.

And oh god, the puppets. Funniest puppet bit I have ever seen. They were doing their whole album produced by James Cameron thing. Linnell puppet pretended to be being choked by Cameron (with Linnell's hand wrapped around his neck). Flans-puppet said he was back with them forcing them to sing, then Flans briefly flipped the camera on himself. Then he swung the camera down and put the puppet down by the floor saying "he's down here, making himself magically invisible." After their first song, they sobbed and pleaded but agreed to do another song. And at the end, Flans still cried "Meg Ryan!" even though he picture no longer seemed to be attached to the drum. God, I love running gags.

Linnell introduced the Towson song and started into it. He started to forget one of the lines to the first verse and even though he remembered it, he still stopped and had the band start over. Flans asked if he wanted the sock puppets to do it and Linnell said yes, but he'd fuck it up even more that way. Then he refered to his puppet as a "little sawed off runt." He said if he forgot the words this time he'd make up better ones. But he did pretty well on the second go round, considered they haven't played the song but the one other time six years ago.

They were having a fair amount of trouble tripping over the carpets laid on the stage in the later quarter of the show. There were two that met right at center stage but they weren't taped down. I know Flans and Danny both tripped on the edge and I think Linnell may have a little a one point too. It was particularly bad towards the end of the show, I think during Don't Let's Start, as the carpet started to bunch under Flans' mic stand. Since the edges of both carpets met right where I was standing, I grabbed onto the corner and tried to flatten it back out again. Then Danny almost took a header on it really kicking it up in the middle so that Flans had to flip it back over. After that, I spent the last song or two just holding onto the edge, trying to prevent it from flipping up again and breaking someone's neck. I have no idea if it would have helped at all since nobody tripped after that point but I'd like to think I tried.

I am sure there was other humorous banter and stuff to recount, but that it all I can remember at the moment. Fortunately, one of the other wikians videoed the whole show so you can watch it on YouTube in all it's glory. The link is off of the show page on TMBW.

After the show, while we were waiting for a setlist, this crazy guy came up next to my boyfriend and started yelling at the crew and picking up the fallen cowbell. He'd pick it up and put it down, then pick it up again and we were really afraid he was gonna try to steal it. Eventually, when he put it down at one point, my boyfriend grabbed it and slid it back out of his reach, then Danny ended up kicking it to the back of the stage. Rescued=one cowbell. The guy kept yelling at the crew, asking for a setlist and if Linnell (whose name he could not pronounce right) was going to come back out and sign stuff. Will told him he was off eating his dinner. We ended up getting our setlist from Victor, but Danny did lean over after giving one to someone else under the keyboard to say "We made it through that one!" They sure did!

We drove to Gettysburg that night so we could visit the battlefield in the morning before driving our friend to the Pittsburgh show. She had managed to get a ticket before they sold out, unlike me. We were hoping there might be someone with extras at the door or that someone would have turned a couple back in to the box office but no dice. So our friend went in and saw the show and we waited in the car. I admit that I was pretty crushed, especially as they have started playing High Five, which I have never seen and wont have the opportunity to again until October at the earliest and that's assuming they are still playing it then. I had to work pretty hard at not crying with limited success. But we did see Linnell walking off the bus with his coffee as we walked back to the car so at least there was something. Our friend has some great pictures up on Flickr from the show here.

So it was a fantastic trip. Far too short, especially compared to the last one, but it was fun having a friend along for the ride with us. Next stop, The Stone Pony in June. I promise not to steal anyone's beer.