Boston - Eye Contact Special

First I have to make my plug again so it will be seen by all the people who are frightened away by the length of this post and never make it to the end. The new They Might Be Giants fan forum over at http://theymightbegiants.proboards.com/ is off to an excellent start. We've already had more than a 100 posts, so come on over and say hi! We don't bite. Much.

Also, I feel I should warn you before you start that I think this re-cap is a little more fangirlish that I usually shoot for but it couldn't be helped.

April 22, 2010 - Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway - Boston, MA - Earth Day show

Five years, two months and a day after my first They Might Be Giants show I have hit 50! It was up in the air for a while where 50 was actually going to be, but a free outdoor show in Boston to celebrate Earth Day, attended by all my best TMBG buds seemed pretty perfect. I was looking forward to it like crazy from the moment it was announced. Usually my problem with looking forward to something so much is that I end up building such elaborate fantasies in my head of what it is going to be like that no event can possibly live up to them. In this particular case, the band did not disappoint in the slightest. I can not exactly say the same for where I ended up having to watch the show from but then I guess I have been pretty spoiled in that area.

My boyfriend and I took the T into the city so we wouldn't have to deal with traffic and parking. We stopped at South Station to meet our friend, Fouroftwo, who had come down on the bus, then set out to walk to the event site. The Greenway is a long strip of grass that runs between two roads for about a mile between South Station and North Station. It is the former site of the I-93 overpass which was taken down during the Big Dig and replaced with park land. The new Central Artery runs right underneath all the grass and benches and art pieces.

We weren't exactly sure where on the Greenway the stage was set up, just that it was between the Aquarium and Rowe's Wharf. Walking down the sidewalk, we came around a corner and were faced with an enormous picture of the Johns on a banner on the back of the stage and were pretty sure we had found the right place. We were about 2 hours and 15 minutes early for the show and spent a little time trying to figure out where we should wait. Using the below picture to illustrate, the stage was set up on a large cement area, the edge of which can be seen at the bottom right of the photo behind the row of poles. There was maybe 15-20 feet of cement in front of the stage then a drop with two steps in the center into that triangular grassy area that was another maybe 20-30 feet wide. Then there were another two cement steps leading down to the main lawn. There were metal "parade" barriers set up at the top of the lower set of steps but nothing preventing people from entering the upper grassy and cement levels. There was a row of benches at the side of the cement level (seen by those poles) with some people sitting on them but there was also a lot of crew activity going on in that area so were weren't sure where we were allowed to be and where we weren't and there was nobody around who looked like the right person to ask.

Photo by John Tlumacki/Globe Staff

We ended up briefly going to sit in that little park area with all the oval grass patches until we spotted some friends back at the benches by the stage and went back to join them. I felt a little awkward standing around so close to the stage because a number of the members of the band were milling about on stage and in the vicinity, getting ready for sound check and I felt a little too obvious.

By the time another of our friends had appeared a few people had started spreading blankets on the grass behind the barriers and we decided that we should probably stake out spaces there, figuring that if it turned out we were allowed in the area in front of them we could always move later. Fouroftwo went and did some recon work and was told by a staff member that they did not currently plan to allow people in front of the barriers but they would let us know if that changed. They also strung some string along the sides of the area in front of us to prevent people entering. We were pretty sure there was no way that Flansburgh was going to tolerate the audience being a good 40-50 feet back from the stage and it turned out we were right.

This is somebody's pre-show picture I snagged from Twitpic showing the group of us waiting at the barrier (we do not know the guy in the green shirt in the middle of our group. He was already there and we had to spread out around him). The angle is bad but you can kind of see the gap between where we were and the stage. Somewhere out there in the world there also exists a very similar picture to this one, taken from the other side, as Linnell photographed us from the stage with one of his old cameras just before they started sound check. Nifty. He also had the camera still over his shoulder while he was playing the keyboard during sound check.

They started soundcheck with 813 Mile Car Trip but they were having issues with Linnell's mic so we could barely hear the words. It sounds pretty cool without them. Then they launched into The Kids Are All Right by The Who. Random. It took me a minute to recognize what they were playing. They played a little of The Guitar and seemed to have sorted out the mic issues for Meet the Elements.  For Pirate Girls Nine, Linnell pulled out a shiny, beautiful new accordion. It's a bit larger than Main Squeeze but still red. It's purdy.



I've noticed before during shows that Danny often takes the lead on passing instructions about sound levels to whomever is on monitors. I was amused to notice during this sound check that he seemed to be checking Linnell's sound as well as his own. He was giving Will instructions about the keyboard, then after Pirate Girls asked Linnell to play a little bit of accordion to check it's levels. Not sure what tickled me more, Danny doing Linnell's sound check or the fact that Linnell chose to play the opening to Subliminal to have his sound checked. I <3 those guys.

We saw Scott, the tour manager, come out to talk to the organizers about how far back the barriers were. He obviously wanted the audience to be closer to the stage. They hemmed and hawed over it for a while, obviously worried about people falling backward off the cement level into the grass (there were only stairs in the center, the rest was a ledge about 2 feet high). They did end up putting some barriers on the sides and running string out to the edges and we thought they were going to let us in but they never did, despite Scott coming back to talk to them at least twice more.

The Greenway filled up as it neared noon and there were people as far back as we could see. The last of our friends arrived and we made a new friend who joined us because we were the cool t-shirt area. If he happens to read this, hi, new friend! On the topic of t-shirts I had made a special one to celebrate my 50th show and Fouroftwo had designed her own awesome band shirt. I posed for a couple of pictures, one for one of the radio station employees helping out at the show and one for another fan. Unbeknownst to me, I also got photographed by one of the professional photographers who was working the event and he was kind enough to send me a copy.

Photo by Frame of Mind Photography

If I look a little less than enthusiastic, it's because the photo was shot during the opening act. Let's just say that I was not a fan of Citizen Cope and even more so, I was not a fan of his fans. The whole concert was sponsored by 92.5 The River and about 20 minutes after noon, when the show was supposed to have started, one of the radio DJs came out to explain that Citizen Cope was having sound trouble and would be on shortly. When he did come on, his music was just not to my taste and I found his voice grating. And his fans were obnoxious. They were essentially a bunch of stoners who lit up smelly joints shortly after his set started and pushed in front of other people who had been there a lot longer so they could be in front. Cope only played 4 or 5 songs (though they were long) before leaving the stage and his fans screamed obnoxiously and rudely for an encore while a woman from the Greenway Conservancy was trying to speak, even though it was obvious that he had no intention of returning. Fortunately, they all left once they realized he wasn't coming back. Good riddance. 

There was also drama going on in the crowd during his set, as a woman had fainted and the paramedics had to come in and take her away. Though I felt bad for the woman, it did make for some amusing jokes about how Cope's music was so bad it had made someone pass out. To be fair I didn't mind his instrumentals, it was the lyrics and singing that I didn't care for.

A group of people wearing VIP badges were allowed into the grassy area in front of us during Cope's set which was annoying but most of them sat so they weren't blocking our view. Then they all got up and walked back behind the barriers to the side at the end of the set. Weird. Scott came out for one more conversation with the organizers, which once again didn't have any immediate results. We were beginning to fear that our early jokes about having to leap the barriers when Flans called people down (or in this case up) to the stage were going to become more of a reality than we had originally intended. 

And we were proven right shortly after. Just before They Might Be Giants set, Scott came out on stage and invited everyone to come down by the stage to dance if they entered in an orderly fashion from the right (his right, not ours). At first only the VIPs came in and we weren't sure if he meant everyone or just them but then we noticed lots of other people who had been standing along the sides of the Greenway coming in. We were rapidly loosing our view and front row spots but were stuck in the middle of the crowd unable to get in to the stage area without leaping over the barriers, which we were pretty sure the security guards weren't going to permit. 

And the situation devolved into chaos a few minutes later when TMBG took the stage and Flansburgh, of course, immediately encouraged everyone to come up to the stage and actually told us to come over the barriers. Despite protests from the guards we were up and over pretty quickly but in the chaos and confusion I had to go back for my boyfriend and we got separated from all of our friends. There were already so many people in front of us who entered from the sides that there was no way to get near the stage. We tried standing on the upper stairs but I couldn't see, so we moved to the right. That turned out to be even worse and feeling pretty defeated and disappointed I ended up picking a spot near the back of the crowd on the grass, slightly to the left of center, where I at least had a reasonably clear view. 

To give you an idea of how far back I was, take at look at this picture. You can see the back of my boyfriend's head just above the woman in the blue bandana in the left foreground, and I am just to his left.

Photo by Frame of Mind Photography

Needless to say, after waiting for two and a half hours it kinda sucked. The concert from that point on however, did not suck. Not even in the slightest. I kind of missed the beginning of Upside Down Frown while I was finding a spot to stand and for the first three songs, including Your Racist Friend and Ana Ng, I was in a bit too much of a huff to appreciate them but I calmed down and really truly enjoyed the rest of the show. It helped that somehow, impossibly, despite all of the people in front of me, Danny still spotted me in the crowd and smiled at me and gave me sympathetic shrug and head shake, as if to say, "Aw, you ended up way back there? Sorry about that." I shrugged back to indicate "whatcha gonna do" and felt enormously better.

Flans complemented Linnell, sarcastically, on his excellent singing on Ana Ng since he had screwed up the words.

Flans told us we were standing on the only Greenway made entirely of money. "Your tax dollars at work." He told us they were from New York City and Linnell started flapping his arms and said their arms were exhausted. Flans pointed out that their carbon footprint is astronomical. They then transported us back to 1997 for the release of their new album and played lucky track 13, The Mesopotamians.

Introducing Dan Miller on the keyboard for Alphabet of Nations, Flans said he was the only member of They Might Be Giants' support band who hadn't shown them his birth certificate and they require proof of origin from all their members. Afterwards, Flans commented that they still didn't know where he was from and Linnell suggested Xylophone.

Flans had Marty do an electric drum demo before WDTSS and said that everyone usually hates electric drums and that Marty may even hate the electric drums. Marty claimed that he didn't but who knows.

Best version of WDTSS ever! Linnell told us that the sun is so hot that everything on it sounds like an EBow and then demonstrated what an EBow sounds like on the keyboard. He then told us that a million earths would fit inside the hollowed out sun comfortably. Flans started making weird noises into the mic and his moving arms around which Linnell interpreted as a chimp playing a theremin on the a sun.
Linnell: "A chimp playing a theremin on the sun...people!"
Flans: "This show isn't free. They're torturing us!"
Then both of them made some more chimp on a theremin impressions.
Linnell: "Yes, there really is a chimp playing a theremin on the sun. I lost my place. Where were we?"
Apparently the heat and light of the sun are caused by:
"Um, Mr. Jigs, Bonzo the Chimp and um, thats it I'm out of chimp names. And helium."
Thank god one of my awesome companions got video of this.



Describing the origins of Why Does the Sun Really Shine, Flans blamed the Golden Book Encyclopedia for not sending them the update that the sun was really plasma and explained that they had already made the "moderately expensive rock video" for WDTSS for Here Comes Science when they learned that it was incorrect so they had to write the new one so they could still use the video.

Good part about not having horns at the show: Dan got his Istanbul solo back. Hurrah! Oh god, how I have missed that solo. It amuses me how many people in a crowd do not recognize that the song is Istanbul almost until they start singing.



They followed with Meet the Elements and Memo to Human Resources. Flans commented that this was a good set-up for an outdoor show. They weren't getting free Lasik treatments from the sun, it wasn't raining and it was nice to play for a crowd that didn't hate them. Which, he said, was a good segue into the next song, Asbury Park. Flans announced that they were playing at the Stone Pony in June and that it was so small that even if only a small section of the crowd in front of the stage that he pointed to showed up, the place would be full. He said he would put those people on the list. Don't worry Flans, most of us will be there anyway!

Part way through the show, possibly during Meet the Elements, though I am very unsure of that, someone in the crowd released a single orange balloon which Linnell watched float up into the air as he sang. After the song, he told Flans about it and said it was like and art piece and that they should consider that for the future instead of the confetti that they usually dump on people but couldn't because they were outside and it was Earth Day, after all.

When Linnell picked up the accordion for Doctor Worm the crowd cheered and Flans commented they we liked the new accordion. Linnell said it was probably because the black keys are red. And they are!  I also got a reasonably good picture of Danny flying into the air during the song.





Then The Guitar, with the awesome Future of Sound solo, followed by Clap Your Hands. The foot stomps just don't sound as impressive on the grass.

Linnell introduced Where Your Eyes Don't Go as the song no one was waiting for, not even the band, but they were going to play it anyway. They followed it up with New York City. Flans sang "I'm four hours from New York City and I'm four hours from you" which is just about right from Boston.

Linnell took multiple photos on the stage during the show with his Horizon camera, pictures from which have previously popped up on both his spinner.com blog and Marty's website. I hope a few of these eventually get to see the light of day.

Flans decided to flip the next two songs on the setlist and instructed us on the call backs for Drink! He asked if the tall building behind us was an office building or apartments and upon hearing that it was apartments decided that the cops would be there in ten minutes.

At some point in there he also pointed out, that for all the parents who mistakenly thought this was a family show, they would be playing a family show in Arlington in May. This for some reason made me very happy, that he pointed out to all the people who had brought their kids that this was in fact not a kids show. It also made me happy to see kids yelling "Drink, Drink!"

They followed Drink! with We Want A Rock, then She's An Angel. Yay! I am growing increasingly fond of that song and love that know one can tell what it is from the strange intro.

Proving once and for all the this was not a family show they did Damn Good Times. Dan climbed up on Marty's drum platform to play the solo with him at the end, putting me in mind of all my favorite Where's Dan moments from Fingertips. It wasn't quite the same but it was close.



And then they did the band intro which made me sad because it meant the show was almost over. Flans asked Dan where that birth certificate was when he introduced him. He went back to the old "The bass, the bass, the bass is Danny Weinkauf" chant. And in reference to Marty, "He needs to hear you scream, ladies. He's a socialist!"



They thanked co-writer Tim Cawley before playing 813 Mile Car Trip. They also thanked everyone for coming and the radio station and Flans' mom.

They came back for one encore. Flans first ascertained that it wasn't really raining yet, though the sky had gone dark and cloudy. It seemed like they had been debating cutting the encore short if it was actually starting to rain but decided to go ahead since there were only a few sprinkles. They started with We Live In A Dump. Danny was singing the ba-ba-ba-da-das with Linnell and Dan even though he had no mic. Dumb things like that amuse me (not that it was dumb, more that it was dumb that I noticed).

They did What is a Shooting Star? but without the puppets. I assume that they figured the puppets wouldn't play well to a crowd that largely couldn't see the stage. Flans did say hi to the people at the back of the Greenway a few times. Incidentally, the title of this blog entry comes from a note across the top of the setlist, which was, I presume, meant to be ironic :-P

Flans announced that Here Comes Science was now available and you could download it for free if you Googled They Might Be Giants and bittorrent and they would of course get all the money. "I'm so glad I came up with that bittorrent idea."



It did start to rain during Shooting Star. Not too badly, but enough to be a little uncomfortable. I made eye contact with Danny again toward the end of the song and he kind of laughed at me sympathetically, as I was hunched up under the raindrops. He also leaned over and said something to Linnell immediately after, which may have been unrelated but which also may have been something along the lines of: "maybe we should skip the last encore because the crowd is getting wet." I kind of hate to think so as then hundreds of people may hate me for preventing them from hearing Particle Man (which was written on the setlist as a possible second encore with question marks though they didn't end up doing it) simply because I was getting dripped on. Though the thought has obviously crossed my mind, I shall choose to believe otherwise to avoid the wrath of the fans and also so I don't blame myself for missing out on another song.

They finished the show with a kick-ass performance of Birdhouse. Much bouncing ensued. I once read a review of a show that described the audience's movements during Birdhouse as "enthusiastic pogo-ing" which I think is the best possible description. Woot!

We were able to reconnect with our friends after the show at the front of the stage. The security guards were being absolute dicks to us while we waited for setlists, insisting that they had been told to let us touch nothing from the stage, that we weren't going to get anything and that we were going to be in the way of them breaking down the stage. Even after we explained that members of the crew always come out to give out setlists, they were still being jerks. This one guy in particular found out someone was signing autographs at the side of the stage and tried to convince us that that was better than a setlist to get us to leave. One of my friends pointed out that if we had a setlist we'd have something to get signed and his response was "Well, you aren't getting one." Fortunately, just after that Iggy appeared on stage, saw my shirt, commented on it being my 50th show and asked if I wanted a setlist. Yes, please! I got Linnell's and he gave a couple of others out to a few other people that were waiting. So there, obnoxious security guard!



It turned out to be Marty that was signing by the side of the stage. Fouroftwo had already been through the line of people waiting for autographs and said that Marty kept saying he needed to leave but he stayed and kept signing like a trooper. He signed my setlist and commented on my shirt. So I have a nice memento from my 50th show.

I was really glad I got to spend some time with my friends both before and after the show since we got separated during the show and it was lovely to be able to do the post-show re-hash with most of the group. We definitely need to make that happen more often.

So, crummy organizing resulting in so-so view (and bad sunburn, unrelated to the organizing) but a spectacular show to make up for it. Can't wait to do it all again in Arlington and more importantly at The Stone Pony. Whee!

There are a bazillion pictures up on Flickr. I had a good photo day and wasn't self conscious about taking pictures since I was so far from the stage.

There are photos from two of the professional photographers out there; a spectacular set on this website that I am absolutely in awe of and the set from the photographer who snapped me on this website.