Awesome Weekend Part Three

September 26, 2010 - Town Hall - New York, NY - Early show

The nice thing about shows at venues with assigned seats is not having to wait outside for hours before the show to secure a spot in front. We got to Town Hall a little before doors opened where most people were just milling around on the sidewalk. We saw both Dan and Stan come outside for a bit and wander around looking like they were looking for friends or family. There always seems to be a pretty good turn out of band family members at New York City kid shows. I was amused that Stan still had the neck strap for his sax hanging around his neck. Always prepared. Danny came out just as we were going in and spent some time talking to someone with Dan and then I also spotted him talking to some little kids in the box office later when I went out to the restroom.

Town Hall is a very nice theater with wonderful acoustics. We had seats in the third row on the right side with Megan and Stacy and Steve were a couple rows back since we hadn't bought our tickets together. The show definitely wasn't sold out at many of the seats in the large balcony were empty when the show began.

Apologies if I mix up what stuff happened at which show. The setlists were identical except for the encore and our seats were almost the same so there is very little in my mind to distinguish the two.

The show started with very little fanfare and I have to say this was one of the lowest vibe shows I have ever been to. The audience seemed like they were all still asleep and then there was some weirdness with security that I'll get into later, but it all made for a very odd feel to the show. Not by any fault of the band though. They still rocked their darndest even though I'm sure they weren't fully awake since the show was at noon.

Flans introduced everyone in the band first, the most amusing being Danny who was back to the audience tuning his bass, which Flans pointed out to everyone and Danny waved without turning around.

They started right off with How Many Planets? and I guess we were wrong about Flans messing up because Robin wasn't there because they did it without her. It really does come off well live. Flans and Linnell do the lip flubber thing that they use on Fibber Island to make the watery sound on Neptune.

We did some back beat clapping for Particle Man and Flans was really making an effort to keep everyone clapping with a look of mock consternation on his face. Linnell mentioned the minor key on the bridge again, not that little kids even know what that means.

Then Flans brought Dan Levine down from the horn platform and asked all the dads in the audience to take out a $20 bill. When nobody did he started ribbing them, saying something about "do it for your kids" and telling them that he would hold the show until they all did. Then he held up his own $20 bill next to Dan and told everyone that Dan Levine's face is on the $20 bill. Dan smiled next to the picture and nodded to assure everyone that this was fact. Flans said that Dan was actually a time traveler. I suppose he does look a little bit like Jackson.

Flans introduced Pirate Girls Nine but forgot to give us counting instructions so we were pretty much the only ones counting.



Next, Flans brought out Robin and introduced her to everyone. She told us she was going to sing us two songs about cars. The first was In the Middle and the second was Electric Car. The later was particularly fantastic as both Johns and Robin imitated driving around in cars with very large steering wheels (and a horn in Linnell's case) while singing the chorus at the end. Good song. Robin strolled off the stage before the guys were even finished playing the last of the music.



Somewhere very early on in the show, the guys lost all the sound from the monitors which was right about the point I finally realized that Scott was on monitors because I could see him backstage trying to fix it. There were some other miscellaneous sound issues too which all just contributed to the odd vibe.

Flans asked for a volunteer from the band to be "the laziest member of They Might Be Giants" and Curt came down to fill that role for I Never Go to Work.

I think we did the scream for Marty part before Clap Your Hands since he did the band intros on the electric kit. I know Flans said "He's come all the way from Brooklyn to hear you scream" which got a good chuckle out of the NYC parents whenever it was. I remember consciously not screaming as loud as I usually do so as not to hurt small children's ears. We clapped and jumped etc, but there was a little boy in front of me who refused to participate even when his dad tried to encourage him to. It was kinda cute.

And of course the silly audience all sat back down right as Linnell sang "Get on your feet and Go, GO, GO!" in Kids Go. Why do people always do that?

Puppets! The screen wasn't immediately working when they went to start the puppet segment and Flans asked the guys to play Frankenstein again while Scott got it up and running. I remember there being some bit of humor in the puppet segment that I thought didn't go over particularly well with the kids because they just didn't get it, but I've of course forgotten what it was. I know it was something the Blue one was saying. Flans reached up into the camera view to adjust Blue Avatar's soul patch and Green Avatar commented that that must be his assistant's hand. Blue Avatar said yes, it was his intern's. Unpaid. They told the kids that there was this movie called Avatar that they were probably too young to see but that they, the Avatars, had been the stars and were going to re-enact a scene for us. They proceeded to do their 3D impression pulling away from and then back into the camera. They also, of course, sang Shooting Star and Stalk of Wheat. One of the shows had some really silly ad lib at the end of Shooting Star where Green Avatar looked like he was trying to eat the camera.

Flans once again left the camera on, pointed at the audience for Whistling in the Dark. This time, instead of just letting the beating of the drum vibrate the image on the screen he was purposefully shaking the drum with his hand on each beat to make the image wobble. Linnell commented afterwards that he liked it because it looked like an earthquake. Both times they played this song today Flans played most of it without his glasses on which was a little odd. I think he just took the opportunity of only needing one hand to play the drum to remove them so he could wipe his face but both times he took them off as he was walking over and didn't put them back on until just before he needed to sing. Odd.

Flans came down to let the little kids play his guitar on Older. He had a little trouble convincing the kids it was all right to come down and play. He gave his guitar pick to one little girl to play with but then she thought everyone needed it and was trying to pass it on to the next kid. It was pretty adorable. They did the big monster confetti launch with the guys all freezing but Dan was the only one who really managed to keep his pose the whole time.



At some point during the show, Stacy texted me to point out that the chandelier hanging from the ceiling was full of confetti. Sure enough, inside the lovely old chandelier you could see piles of colored paper. Whoops. Not too long after that (it might have even been during Older) Dan noticed this and pointed it out to Danny who gave a very amused "Oh Shit" face and then proceeded to point it out to Marty who had a very similar reaction. It was like a combination of amused and "oh, crap, somebody's gonna be mad." It actually looked like at least one of them really did say "Oh, shit." I really do wonder how the venue people were gonna get the confetti out. I hope they have a REALLY tall ladder.

They played Seven, but this was when the weirdness started happening with security so I got very distracted. The horns came down to the front and were bopping around while they played which was fun. But meanwhile, a security guy came down to the other end of our row and asked a man to get up and come with him. At the same time other security guards came to the front and started making all the people who were standing in by the front of the stage (mostly kids who had gone up to play Flans' guitar during Older) go back to their seats. The guy in our row couldn't get out because of all the confusion but even after the aisle was cleared the security people still took him out into the lobby. He was gone for a few minutes then eventually returned. I have no idea what was going on. At first I thought they were busting him for taking pictures because there had been a No Cameras sign on the door and he was using one, but Megan asked at the second show and they said non-flash photography was fine. So I have no clue what the trouble was. I guess they cleared the aisles for safety purposes. But the whole thing really stressed me out, probably way more than it should have. I was surprised that Flans didn't say anything about it since he was obviously watching what was going on from the stage, but maybe he just didn't feel like causing mayhem with security at a family show.



I was still pretty distracted by the time they started Doctor Worm but it did have a very funny beginning. Flans said that it was a song about a doctor who thinks he's a worm and Linnell immediately cried that it was called "Worm Doctor." But then the guys smashed into the song before he was ready and Linnell, had to stop them because he NEEDED to tell us that the song was actually called Doctor Worm and Flans apologized for misleading us. Then they smashed into it again.

Flans made a joke about Marty being in 98 Degrees as he was coming down for High Five! Marty did some of the most spectacularly energetic and spastic dancing I have seen him do, spinning and jumping and expending more energy in a three minute song that I do in a week. I kept being afraid as he was running back and forth to high five people that he was going to trip on all the stuff at the front of the stage because he was moving so fast but he didn't. People in the front rows were a little slow on the uptake on the high five thing but a few kids eventually came down. When Marty got up on the edge of the drum platform for his dance break, Flans started doing a chant that went "M to the A to the R to the T to the Y to the Y to the Y." It was the best thing ever. Marty came over and slug his arm around Flans for the "all your friends" line. And everybody was ready for him at the end of the song, standing there with their hands in the air for him to slap as he ran by. I think they are finally getting the hang of this one.

Dan stopped to tune the acoustic guitar before Fibber Island. Flans started ribbing him. "Oh now he's tuning his guitar. Mr. Fancy Pants. You wont see me tuning my guitar. Don't want it. Don't like it. Don't need it." I love that Flans has started doing this thing when he sings the line about hiding mittens in our hair when he crouches down at the front of the stage pointing at his head as if we could spot hidden mittens. Flubber, flubber, flubber, flubber. Zilch. Dan makes the best faces while singing Zilch. What am I saying? Dan makes the best faces while singing anything.

Flans introduced Danny for Paleontologist telling us we were about to hear our favorite song. Then he started chanting "Danny, Danny, Danny." Sadly, the audience did not pick up on this quickly enough and he dropped it. Danny asked everyone to stand up to help him rock. He dedicated the song to a little boy named Julian that he had been talking to before the show who had told him it was his favorite song. I don't remember what dinosaurs Linnell subbed in but he had a funny one and a made up one that he used at both shows.

Marty moved over to the electric kit for Nonagon. Flans said how they were bring back New Wave and making everyone nostalgic for the asymmetrical haircuts of the 80s. Marty realized the electric drums weren't on and was trying to enlist help from Scott. He told Flans the drums weren't on. Flans said that put a crimp in the New Wave. He looked back at Linnell like he was trying to quickly think of a back-up plan but Scott got the drums running and all was well. Let the polygon party commence!

They did the new band intro again. I like Marty's electric drum beat. I miss him wrecking his kit. Dan actually got a part this time.

They closed out with Istanbul with the usual amount of fake endings and more confetti. There also was no intro at all but the horns did get to do a great outro. And they didn't do an encore at all. Either they were short on time or the mood just wasn't right.

They didn't give out any of the setlists because they reused them for the second show. Except for the one Marty gave to someone who asked when he came out to turn off the electric drums. I settled for a smile and a wave from him.

We made our way out to the sidewalk to figure out what to do before the next show. Dan and Danny were both outside once again. I would have kind of liked to go talk to Dan since I have only spoken to him once and very briefly but I didn't have anything to get signed and I've kind of taken up a policy of not bugging the guys unless they talk to me first except when I'm getting them to sign something.

Danny was much closer to where we were standing and was signing stuff and posing for pictures with little kids which was pretty adorable. There was a little boy in an astronaut jumpsuit who was super cute. And I'm standing there watching this, when Danny looks over and sees me and mouths "Do you have a Sharpie?" while making the writing motion with his hand. He was trying to sign a kid's foam finger and the pen he was using just didn't work. I don't know if he just turned to me out of desperation or if he actually remembered my idiotic comment in March about bringing my own marker. But of course I had a Sharpie! I always have a Sharpie. So I walked over and gave it to him and walked away again and he went back to signing things for small children with my marker. I have been useful! He brought it back over when he was done (which I felt a little bad about since he was still limping) and said thank you. And he remembered my name. :-) It's the little things.

And I shall close this re-cap on that terribly fangirlish moment (Psst, secretly that was the best part of my day.) Stay tuned for the continued adventures of that Sharpie, as it's going to make another appearance in the recap of the second show, this time flying at my head.