Way Better Than Last Night

March 11, 2010 - The National - Richmond, VA

This show rocked so hard I am still reeling from it. Awesome x10.

We started the day still in Charlotte and decided we needed to make a detour for a photo op before heading north. We had passed a store called Fancy Pants the day before and decided that we NEEDED a picture to send to JoCo. This is obviously where Mr. Fancypants gets his pants (except that it's a children's boutique).

That done we started north and promptly got stuck in a dead stand still traffic jam. We had left plenty of time to get to the show so that wasn't a problem but our plans to do anything else but drive that day vanished. The drive between Charlotte and Richmond was long and boring. Once we finally arrived at the hotel we realized that doors at The National were an hour earlier than everwhere else so we went straight over.

Due to separate lines for will call and ticket holders we were first in line, however, diners at the adjoining restaurant got first entry so there were already 10 or so people inside when we went in.

We saw Dan and Marty outside while parking the car and Danny hanging around while we waited in line. Confirmed the presense of the red pants and were pleased.

I should also note that I had, on Wednesday sent JoCo a message on Twitter requesting Ikea be played at one of the TMBG opening gigs. It didn't appear that night but I was still holding out hope.

The National is a huge, old-style theater with the seats removed from the first floor but the ones in the balcony were all in place. The stage was enormous, even bigger than The Orange Peel. There was tons of room for the guys to move around and rock out and boy did they ever.

We decided to go for the left side of the stage because the view was better (the only spots on the right were too far down behind the electric kit). So we ended up in front of Danny and the drum platform. This ended up being an excellent viewing spot as there was an aisle in front of the drums where Danny, Flans and Linnell all came to play at various points.

JoCo came out with his joke about killing time while the Giants put on their elaborate make-up and costumes again. He also announced that they would be playing an entire Gwar album. He played Future Soon and Shop Vac and I figured he was just doing the same set again. Then he announced the next song was about furniture and I practically fell through the floor. Ikea! My request worked! He played it instead of Skullcrusher Mountain and I am sure there were a few people at the show who were sad he didn't play that. Good thing they didn't know it was all my fault :-) After the song (which is just so awesome - I LOVE that song, in case that wasn't obvious) he said he had played it at the opening of an Ikea at 6:30 in the morning in a parking lot proving just what his soul was worth (about $50).

He did Creepy Doll, the highlight of which was someone in the audience yelling "I'm scared" part way through and JoCo saying "I told you it was scary." Then concluded with Mr. Fancypants ("Only my audience would cheer at me putting this thing on") and Re: Your Brains during which my boyfriend amused me with his zombie impression.

The turn over between acts seemed pretty fast. There was a club security person who was a little overly concerned about us touching the tube lighting on the edge of the stage (Iggy told him it was fine, the stuff was pretty hard to damage). There were also some interesting adds on a video screen for upcoming acts. I didn't even know The Goo Goo Dolls were still playing and I am always amused by the name Mastadon (I amuse easily).

Absolutely the only bad thing about this show was that I was standing in front of a vent blowing cold air so I was freezing until I started jumping around.

The TMBG setlist:Meet the Elements - Fingertips - The Guitar - Clap Your Hands - Dr. Worm - Memo To Human Resources - Upside Down Frown - The Mesopotamians - Road Movie - TMBG - Sapphire Bulletts - Women and Men - Hot Cha - Whistling in the Dark - Letterbox - Minimum Wage - Hearing Aid - Shooting Star - Stalk of Wheat - Someone Keeps Moving My Chair - We Want a Rock - Twisting - Particle Man - Racist Friend - Dead - Istanbul - Lucky Ball and Chain (sort of) - Birdhouse - Theme from Flood. Encore - Damn Good Times - Withered Hope - Don't Let's Start. Emcore 2 - WDTSS - Alphabet of Nations - Turn Around

TMBG plowed through their first several songs without any interuption and they were rocking so hard and were in such a good mood, it was like there was energy flowing off the stage. Such a change from the night before.

Flans missed the beginning of a line in Fingertips because he was adjusting his amp but there were so many people singing along it almost didn't matter.

During Dr. Worm, Danny came out to play right in front of us and executed this fantasic classic rock style leap in the air with his bass designed to make girls swoon in the aisles. Thud.

When they finally did get around to talking Flans mentioned the number of beards in the audience again. But half the people there thought he said beer (myself included) and held up their beer. He had to yell, "Beards, not beer." He said the beard is a commitment, it's getting that tattoo on your face.

Flans explained they would be playing Flood backwards and Linnell commented that the musical theme of the night was crescendo. Danny commented to Flans that this was another word of the day which Flans shared with the audience and referenced the "regicide" from the other night.

During the early verses of Road Movie before the whole band comes in on the bridge, Danny was standing at the back of the stage using the corner of an amp to scratch his back. Both Victor and Dan were laughing at him when they noticed.

Linnell coughed part way through Women and Men and missed a couple of lines (his face while laughing at himself trying to sing while choking was kind of priceless). After the song he and Flans were laughing that this was just a sign of what years 25-50 of their performing careers was going to be like. They said the percentage of coughing to singing will graudually grow until their act is 70 percent coughing.

When Flans went over to the drum for Whistling in the Dark he couldn't find the mallet and first asked Marty if he had taken it then asked, "Does anyone in the audience have a mallet?" He decided he'd just wreck the drum playing with the sticks but Marty sent one of his mallets across the stage by courier for him to use.

They introduced Letterbox as the song they sing really fast and make look difficult. Then Flans commented after Minimum Wage that the statute of limitation on the samples they used on Flood must have run out. Not entirely sure what he was after but he made Linnell laugh.

They launched the big blizzard confetti canon at the end of Hearing Aid and we got thoroughly coated since we were standing right in front of it.

The puppet segment went off without a hitch this time. The puppets claimed we were all locked in with them in sock puppet jail. Flans-puppets announced that they should sing Lincoln in it's entirety and began doing the beginning beat of Ana Ng in a kind of "shhhing" sound. They also managed to get their Meg Ryan joke to work this time as her little cut-out was actually visible on the screen when Flans yelled her name.

The guys were all confused by a strange noise on stage after the puppets went away and Flans said there was a mic left on but Danny figured out the it was the screen being raised. Not only did the screen retract, the whole beam it was attached to rose in the air which was what was making the noise. High tech!

Flans got confused when they went to play We Want A Rock and asked Linnell if he was going to play keyboard and didn't he usually play this one on the accordion. Linnell confirmed that he was going to play keys but said that the accordion was a keyboard too. I can understand Flans' confusion as I have seen Linnell play the song on both instruments, seemly without rhyme or reason.

A few songs after the puppets Linnell informed us that his coffee was full of confetti, that he had removed some, but there was more in there and he was still drinking it. Flans told him that the confetti was laced with LSD but Linnell said it was overpowered by the even stronger stuff he already had in his coffee: methedone.
Then he reneged and said that he meant method acting and proceeded to do some weird posing.

They launched the confetti blizzard for round two at the end of Istanbul and that confetti had some serious staying power. Flans started Lucky Ball and Chain but had to stop because he said the confetti was distracting him. It was flying almost up to the ceiling and hung for quite a while after the launch. He said that perhaps he should not have mixed the LSD and the methedone. He made a second attempt at Lucky but also cut that one short and decided it just wasn't happening tonight. A few people in the crowd made noises of disappointment but Flans promised they'd make it up to them with the next song and they launched into Birdhouse.

The major advantage of playing Flood backward is that Birdhouse is back at the end. And oddly, Theme from Flood makes a nice wrap-up to a Flood show and got a good sing along.

They finally managed to get Don't Let's Start into an encore this time, wrapping up the first one with it. They came back for round three, introducing Marty's electric kit and doing a similar demonstration of it's sounds to the one they had done the other night, complete with the John Kerry joke.

Danny jumped up on Marty's drum platform to play during the nuclear reactions section again. While he was waiting for the right part he did something with the sticks that made Victor crack-up so hard he couldn't stop laughing and even when he did, every time he looked back at Danny he started again. I couldn't actually see Danny's head to see what he had done but I'm pretty sure he licked the end of the sticks. I could be wrong but that was what it looked like from where I was. Whatever, it was amusing to watch Victor's reaction.

Linnell did some factastic scat at the beginning of Alphabet of Nations that I hope someone has video of because it was excellent.

Flans has been doing a new chant for Danny during the band intros this week. Instead of "The bass, the bass, the bass is Danny Weinkauf" we've been led in "Danny Weinkauf on the bass, Danny Weinkauf on the bass." It's much easier to chant actually and he still asked only the sexy people to chant one time and then had us whisper.

I was kinda hoping when Linnell picked up his accordion at the end of the encore that they would close with Subliminal but they did Turn Around instead. Fair enough. That's a good song too.

Afterwards, we waited for a setlist and it was actually Danny who started passing them out because someone asked him for one while he was picking up his stuff. He gave one girl a setlist and a hug. Then he saw me and went and got another one and gave it to me then leaned over and said "Better than last night?" "Way better," says I. Then I had a full on squee about the fact that he had talked to me. Totally made my night. And then it got better.

I was going to try to see if he would sign the setlist for me but he went backstage so we left. We were walking along side the building back to our car when I saw him standing in a side door by himself. I decided to go for it and walked back and asked if he'd sign the setlist. He said sure, then I believe I said something stupid about bringing my own pen (I always carry a sharpie with me a shows just in case). While he was signing he asked, "You aren't going to be there tomorrow too, are you?" I said yes. He said, "Wow, that's dedicated. Where do you stay?" Me: "Where ever's cheapest." Then he went on the say how bad they felt about that Charlotte show and they didn't know what they should do and wished they could have done another show for free or something. I told him it really wasn't that bad. He thanked me for coming and I said "see you tomorrow" and that was that.

And then I pretty much floated home. I tried to remain cool but it just wasn't happening, I was far too excited.

Danny Weinkauf = Classiest guy in showbiz

I've pretty much known for a while that he recognizes me, since St. Louis last year I think. He frequently notices me in the audience and smiles at me but I did not have actual confirmation until now. Of course I have a massive capacity to over analize things and am now concerned that his wording of the "you aren't going to be there tomorrow" question was more because he finds me annoying and creepy and was hoping I wasn't going to be. I hope not. I try really hard to draw a hard line between enthusiastic and creepy and the last thing I want to do is annoy the band. I will choose to believe that the question was worded in disbelieve that we travel so much to see the band. I really hope so, otherwise I would just be crushed.

See, now I have gone and had a total freak out because I am a nerd and a worry-wort. And this was totally the best show of the whole trip and pretty much ever.

Next and last there will be the Towson re-cap. I know, I am running behind. That show was almost as good at this one. Almost.

Pictures from the trip should be up tomorrow evening once I am reunited with my computer.