Last family show recap of the year coming up.
We got to the Quick Center not quite knowing what to expect from this day before Halloween show. We were very curious to see if the band would be dressing up (the answer was no) or if any of the audience would be (mostly no). We were plenty early for the 1:30 doors and got to enjoy some of the nice fall weather outside while we waited. We did see a small boy dressed as a paleontologist with a little plastic pith helmet but he might have been wearing it to the show even if it wasn't Halloween. We also saw him after the show and he had had Danny sign his little helmet. Everybody say awwwwwwwwwww.
It was just Megan and the boyfriend and I at this show. We did meet up with our friend Kathy and some other friends of ours but they all had seats in other parts of the theater. The Quick Center is a nice little auditorium on the Fairfield University campus. Great stadium seating meant that our seats halfway back in the auditorium still had an excellent view and the acoustics were quite good.
We figured they had brought Stan with them given the saxophone on the stage and were thus surprised to see Curt pop on stage to set up his music. Pretty sure this is the only time I have seen Stan and Curt without Dan. Usually it's all three or just one. It was a nice surprise.
The band came on to Hot Dog! over the PA and Flans did a round of introductions. Linnell has cut his hair again but it's not that bad. Flans joked about it being very early in the morning for them before they started Bed Bed Bed. For some reason before he started the song Linnell said, "Gasp. Pant, pant." I can't remember if there was actually context but if there was it didn't make much sense. Just funny. Megan has dubbed Flans' single twang in front of the keyboard on "I practiced the guitar" as a "Flans drive-by solo" which is absolutely perfect and which he executed perfectly. We got a little bit of confetti back where we were sitting but not too much.
Curt came down from his ice cream castle to do I Never Go to Work. Flans seemed to make a big point of saying that Curt was from Connecticut. I guess he was trying to drum up home state support.
Flans asked Linnell to explain the next song. He said it was about a worm who wishes that the song was about a doctor. I don't think I need to tell you what the song is called.
At some early point in the show all the music blew off of Curt's music stand. The guys at the back were trying to collect it and Flans turned around and said, "What happened? Oh, it fell over. I'm going to turn this fan off so the the musician's music doesn't fall off the stands. The heartache, people."
"This next song is about three things: pirates, girls and the number nine." Flans gave us some counting instructions and attempted to lead us in a round of counting but almost no one participated. He told us it stank. He said he could only hear the shy people and no one else, not even Linnell and he had a microphone. He told everyone he wanted to hear all the gregarious people and the emotionally unavailable people. I think we did better on the next round. Sometimes, if I am taking pictures like I was today, I forget to count during the song and then other times I realize I am unconsciously counting even while holding the camera. It's like my brain knows what it's supposed to do even when I'm not paying attention.
Flans got the clapping going for Particle Man and told us we couldn't stop even when the music stopped. There weren't any interesting bridge inserts at this show but Linnell more than made up for that at the later show.
Flans started talking about New Wave again as Marty settled himself at the electric drums. He was saying something about them acquiring the drums last Christmas when Marty was given them by himself or some such nonsense. And he of course talked about boom cars as Marty gave his demo. And Linnell sang about polygons.
Flans gave Marty a very brief introduction for High Five! and Marty was barely ready when they started playing. He did some spectacular dancing but didn't have much luck getting high fives from the audience because there was very little room between the front row and the front of the stage so he could only really reach the people on the edges of the front row and the four or five people sitting on each side. I love how Flans has gotten so used to Marty coming over to him to sling his arm around him on the "when it's time to celebrate with all your friends" line that he now holds out his arm in anticipation. I keep trying to get a picture of it but I keep flunking. At the end of the song as Marty was running around high fiving all the guys he was yelling "do it again" as he slapped each one of them and ended on a great whoop. God, I <3 that man. Flan managed to toss in the obligatory remark about boy bands after the song saying something like "we are all about the boy bands here" in a very obviously sarcastic tone.
Flans: "This song is about science." *Crowd cheers* "Oh, we've got a bunch of intellectuals here. Science eh? Let's see if you like this kind of science."And then they busted into Meet the Elements.
Flans made some fantastically weird noises with his guitar at the beginning of Older but did not have the kids play it, presumably after seeing the trouble Marty was having reaching anyone from the front of the stage. When Danny came down front to join him, Flans moved around in back of him rather than standing in their usual pose so it kind of looked like he was hiding behind him. It was weird. When it came time to launch the cannon Flans went over to help and they waved the thing all around the front of the stage until everyone was coated. Linnell commented after the song that for some people it was more about the confetti than it was about the music.
Dan picked up one of the big fans from the front of the stage and used it to blow all the confetti off the front of the stage and into the laps of the front row.
Flans started talking about their Grammy win for 123s but at first couldn't remember if it had been this February or last February. He eventually remembered that it was 2009 so must have been last year. I guess time flies when you're in a rock band. He and Linnell started talking about the huge weight of winning a Grammy and both were demonstrating being crushed under the weight of their Grammys, with Linnell looking very like Atlas trying to hold up the world. TDK got a great picture of this that he posted on @tmbgfanpics on Twitter the other day. Go check it out if you haven't seen it. It is epic.
This was one of the best performances of Seven I have ever seen. Linnell was getting especially kookie with the arm movements and Dan was in top form with his lines. His intonation on "It's the green house at the end of the block" was the best ever. Total win. I think my favorite part was this:
Flans: "I would like some cake."
Dan: "Me too."
Flans: "Me too." (imitating Dan's tone)
The Avatars did both their songs together today rather than having two appearances. I think they may be realizing that the puppets frequently go over better at the rock shows than the kids shows and they have been kind of loosing the kids when the puppets take over lately. Partly, because most of the puppet jokes lately have gone right over the kids heads. The puppets thanked They Might Be Giants for opening for them. There was something wrong with the colors on the screen and blue one looked green while the green one looked kind of purple. Introducing Shooting Star:
Blue Avatar: "This next song features Mr. Dan Miller. He's really tired. He's playing like he's disoriented."
Meg Ryan came by to say hi. Blue Avatar asked her what she was going to be for Halloween. She said a ladybug. Blue Avatar asked Green Avatar what he was going to be for Halloween. He said he was planning to go in the nude. Blue Avatar then announced that he was going as a skeleton and Flans pulled the puppet off to display his bare hand on the screen. I laughed forever. Then he was holding the puppet in front of his bare hand before saying "hold on, I need to get my costume back on"and dropping off the screen to redress. Somewhere in there he also showed off both his soul patch and his hat. And they sang Stalk of Wheat. I think there was a little bit of 3Ding too. I was probably still laughing at the skeleton.
We all stood up for the national anthem and finally got to shake off some of the confetti. Flans went straight from the last round of clapping into introducing Danny for Paleontologist but forgot to tell everyone to remain standing so most of the audience had sat down by about half way through the song. Linnell ad libbed a trilobite pronunciation joke into his part again which made me happy.
Linnell leaned over to Flans and said something too him then disappeared off back stage because he had forgotten to bring out his clarinet for Cowtown. He reappeared with it and Flans had Stan sound check his clarinet. He played a few little notes. Then Linnell went and played a quite impressive little sequence. which Flans dubbed perfect and they proceeded with the song. Linnell was holding his clarinet kind of like a machine gun while he sang. It was pretty silly.
I do not remember if it was before Cowtown or at some earlier point in the show but one of the times Stan came down to play Flans introduced him as Staniel R. Harrison the 14th president of the United States and he and Linnell riffed on that for a minute. I know after Cowtown, Linnell said "Staniel, everyone!" Perhaps one of my cohorts remembers more of the dialogue because we were quoting it for hours afterward.
Flans went into this thing about the importance of imagination especially in a rock band and how the next song was about an imaginary character called Roy G. Biv. It was wonderful and awkward and I'm not sure if Flans really knew where he was going with it but Marty started to play as soon as he said Roy. G. Biv so he never really got a chance to finish. I continue to be dazzled by the light show in the drums. It is my new favorite thing.
Flans asked Marty and Danny to play some music he could introduce the guys to. They played a version of the newer band intro they've been doing lately except with Marty on the regular drums. Flans just gave each of the guys a short solo and at first I thought he had skipped Dan but I think he did it on purpose because he then introduced Dan for the Istanbul solo so I guess he figured that counted as his introduction.
Dan was having a great time with the solo. Everybody started clapping and Dan kept stopping every 30 seconds or so to snap his fingers a few times. He looked like he was having a ball with it, really rocking as he played. Curt really kicked out his solo at the end of the song too. Flans did the "They say we have to go but we don't want to go" bit with the fake ending and they drowned us in buckets more confetti.
When they came back for Alphabet of Nations, Flans introduced Dan as Papa which I thought was cute. Linnell did pretty much the best Alphabet of Nations arm movements I have ever seen. He was basically impersonating a marionette puppet and it was fantastic.
He even did some more wacky arms stuff in 813 Mile Car Trip at the end including this move with the lightsaber.
Flans had mentioned stickers at some earlier point but didn't have to to show and then had to confirm with someone backstage that they actually had the stickers. He was told that they were on the they were on the other side. Flans said that seemed to be the story of the show. Danny eventually brought one out so Flans could show it off. Flans tried to get an organized flow across the front of the stage for sticker distribution but then he couldn't figure out where the exit was so he didn't know which was to move people. We just went out into the lobby to avoid the crowd but my boyfriend did eventually go back in and get us a setlist from Vince. And we could watch what was happening on stage because there was a video screen in the lobby.
We decided to go back to Kathy's place to get pizza between shows and getting back was an adventure itself. But that shall be the start of the next recap.
I took a bazillion pictures but most came out awful. The picture gods were not smiling on me today. The ones worth sharing are on Flickr but I included most of them above.
Last recap coming soon.
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