Country Music Hall Of Pants

September 27, 2011 - Cannery Ballroom - Nashville, TN

My goodness, Tennessee is a long state. Drove through 3 states in 25 minutes in the morning and drove across Tennessee for four hours in the afternoon just to get to Nashville which is only somewhere in the middle. Thanks to swift travel and dropping back an hour to Central time, we got to the Cannery Ballroom too early, before the parking was even open. I accidentally drove the wrong way around the lot to get back to the street, right past the tour bus, of course right when Anna, the merch girl was coming out the door. Oops. So we paid far too much to park elsewhere and wandered around the area for an hour or so. Counted at least 4 cake bakeries in the square mile radius around the venue, several within the same block. That's a lot of cake.

When we did get in line we were clustered on the stairs to the venue behind a few other people. The band was doing soundcheck. We heard When Will You Die as we walked up the drive, which was exciting as they haven't done it yet without Dan. Then, as we enjoyed the music through an open door, they started checking Canajoharie. Yay!! Oh how I have missed you Canajoharie. I guess they remembered it was another one they knew how to play without Dan. The door was shut after that so we didn't got to hear whatever else they did.

JoCo and company drove up in their van and wandered around trying to figure out where to load in. Turned out they needed to load in right through the front door right past all of us. Awkward. So we watched as Jonathan, Brandon, Christian and Scarface hauled boxes, guitars, drums and other sundry equipment into the venue, then try to figure out where to park their van.

The fact that the front door was the only way in and out of the venue with access to the parking lot meant that TMBG had to exit right past us after sound check to get back to their bus. I was sitting on the stairs and discovered this fact when Linnell and Danny walked right past me down the stairs. I don't think they noticed me though which was good as it would have been awkward. I wasn't quite so inconspicuous with Marty as I happened to look around right as he was coming out the door and he waved at me. Flansburgh shot down the ramp on the side of the stairs on his cell phone and Scott walked by having a conversation about laundry on his cell phone. (This was the point at which I confirmed that Dan was in fact still absent.)

Shortly after, Scott re-entered the venue carrying a large neon yellow laundry bag. I believe he bumped another fan with it as he passed as I heard him apologize to someone. For some reason, I find the idea of Scott doing the band's laundry really amusing.

The next hour or so were passed mostly in boredom. I did chat briefly with the folks next to me who were all college students who had driven in for the show.

This venue was a very unusual shape. The room was huge but there was a long bar that was essentially next to the stage (on the other side of a passageway) so it was sort of like having the stage on the end of the long wall of a rectagular room. There was a lot of the room that looked diagonally down at the stage and a good portion of the room where the stage wasn't visible at all. And the stage itself was tiny compared to the size of the room. But very deep. There was a ramp leading up the length of the stage at the back that lead from the backstage area, but was in front of the video screen. It was a rather unique set-up.

We were on the right side which afforded a really clear view of the whole stage since, sadly, Dan wasn't there to block any of it. The people on my left all seemed to be nice pleasant fans but there were some obnoxious drunks off to our right. I will never understand why people insist on getting wasted at a concert. They won't remember any of it later.

JoCo started with Mr. Fancy Pants again. It was going great until the last verse when he hit a wrong button and the rhythms went all haywire. He ended up singing the end of the verse to the sample that plays at the beginning of the song. Afterward he said that sometimes the buttons do not do what he tells they to. Someone in the crowd yelled "Yes, they do!" He laughed pretty hard and the person yelled, "Don't blame the buttons!"

The rest of his set was Artificial Heart, Shop Vac, Nememes, Sticking It To Myself, Still Alive, Code Monkey, Je Suis Rick Springfield and I Feel Fantastic.

He made the joke about Artificial Heart being a clever marketing ploy to remember the name of his album again. He also said that he was not sure he had met his nemesis yet but there sure were a lot people he hated so it was hard to tell. He joked about playing the French national anthem when he said he was going to sing a song in French. And he's got Christian starting up I Feel Fantastic while he does thank yous at the end so he can segue straight into the song.

Somewhere in this set I caught Brandon's attention and he was smiling at me singing along with whatever song they were playing. This isn't terribly pertinent now, but will become more so in the Asheville recap.

The TMBG set was a tiny bit late getting started. Maybe the laundry wasn't done. Their set looked like this:

Dead - Johnny - We Live In A Dump - Canajoharie - Judy - Particle Man - James Ensor - Los Angeles - Turn Around - Celebration - Birdhouse - Clap Your Hands - Withered Hope - Battle for the Planet of the Apes - Cloisonne - Crazy Train - Spoiler Alert - Crazy Train - Older - Don't Let's Start - Racist Friend - Alphabet of Nations - Pine Box - Ana Ng - When Will You Die - Mesopotamians. Encore - Careful What You Pack - Band Intros - Instanbul Encore 2 - Lie Still - Nothing's Gonna Change My Clothes

Flans greeted everyone and said hello to the people at the back of the room by the brick wall. He teased them about wishing they had arrived sooner. He made a joke about rock music not being sucessful in Nashville that I don't quite recall.

They played Canajoharie completely without fanfare as if this hadn't been the first time they'd played it since the album came out. FYI: It's still amazing.

After Judy, Flans gave Marty a very funny shout out. "Marty Beller, on the drums, ladies and gentlemen. Why is he hitting those drums so hard? What did the drums ever do to him? Except provide a comfortable living for him and his family." At which Marty gave this very funny shrug like "well yes, that is true."

A really drunk guy off on our left kept yelling "I love you John" after each song and Flans eventually said, "We love you too." There was a brief interchange between them. I think Flans was mocking the guy for being so drunk. Then the guy yelled something else unintelligible and Linnell said "I didn't get that part."

I know there was some humorous back and forth between the Johns about the fake accents used on Los Angeles but the specifics of it are gone (this is what happens when I get behind on recaps and have multiple shows rattling around in my head.)

Flans had two records for the Celebration dance contest. One was the signed Join Us, the other was a copy of Bryan Ferry's solo album. Flans made some funny comments about the Bryan Ferry record, then told Linnell to tell a story while he got a drink. Linnell said it was weird that the Bryan Ferry album was all covers because he was a brilliant song writer but when he went to record his own album he didn't record his own songs. He also said something about thinking he had produced it himself. He commented that he couldn't read the back of the record because he didn't have his glasses and Danny insisted on picking up the record and finding the spot on the back that said that yes, Bryan had produced it himself with another guy, even though Linnell had moved on to another train of thought.

They awarded Bryan Ferry to someone off on the left and Flans asked where the couple was that had been doing all the syncronized dance moves to give them Join Us. Linnell said the best thing about them was that after each move they stopped and looked at the band like, "did you see that one?" Linnell said, "The answer is yes. Yes, we did see that."

Flans used a beam in the middle of the room as the division point between the people and the apes. He made the crowd split so there was an aisle down the center and teased some people for jumping sides. He gave out instructions and we waged war. People won. Typical. Danny has kept up his habit of joining Marty on the drums for one round which is pretty entertaining.

Flans said they had been in town for a couple of days and had gotten to visit The Country Music Hall of Pants. He was laughing about how many pairs of pants were on display in the Hall of Fame.

I videoed the Avatar segment from this show, primarily because I wanted to document Danny's keyboard version of Spoiler Alert and epic bass Crazy Train cover since they are limited time offerings. I'll add in the video when I get back.

The Avatars made more whispered comments about They Might Be Giants being mean but they apparently love Jonathan Coulton. They thanked their corporate sponsor Epic Fail Baloney Sandwiches again and performed their jingleh "Epic Fail Baloney Sandwiches - putting baloney in your face since 1946." This time Marty got out his bell on a rope and was clanging it everytime they said the name of the sponsor. The Avatars said they got paid every time the bell rang.

They did Spoiler Alert and then as they wrapped the segment with Crazy Train, Flans attempted to stick the William Allen White head on a stick that he has been calling Ryan Adams into the camera (he did this in Chicago too but I don't think I remembered to mention it.) But the video feed had been turned off so his yelled "Ryan Adams!" had no context. Then he yelled "Who cut the video feed?"

Marty really made Linnell laugh with one of his drum beats in Older but I wasn't clear what had been quite so funny about it.

I was attempting to take a picture of Flans wailing on his guitar either during Older or Don't Let's Start, I'm not sure which, and he stepped out and pretty much shoved it in my camera lens to improve the shot. It came out rather cool but I couldn't get his whole head in frame anymore.

Flans commented after Alphabet of Nations that they frequently hear a little cheering after mentioning a country in the song. For example, he said, he had heard one person cheer after Canada, indicating that had one Canadians in the audience. But this time he said there had been an unusually large response for Zimbabwe from the left side of the room.

Flans said that people seem to like When Will You Die just from the title without even hearing the song. The song just isn't the same without Dan.

When Marty left the drum riser before the encore he flipped his drum sticks in the air back over his head. They landed on the riser but when he came back he had to go hunting for them because he had no idea where they had landed.

Some awful drunk people flooded our corner during the encore break, including a guy who pushed his way to the front with a camera saying, "I'm sorry. I'm an asshole," as he did it. Charming.

As he tuned for Careful What You Pack, Flans said the ratio of people to lead guitarists in Nashville was 1-1 and he was just trying to do his part to keep that ratio in tact.

Flans did the Alternate Band Intros again with the cacophony of awful noises. I love the way he keeps saying "On the guitar, it's me!" as he rubs his guitar against the mic stand.

Flans told everyone to visit Anna at the merch stand, which he could see all the way on the other side of the venue from the oddly positioned stage. He said she had a new robotic credit card machine ready to make your old broken credit card work again. He also thanked the Cannery Ballroom for opening up the laundromat.

As the Johns and Marty were finishing Lie Still, Little Bottle Danny appeared at the bottom of the ramp at the back of the stage, beer in hand, to rejoin them. But instead of just walking up the ramp he shuffled his way up a couple inches at a time with each foot like a penguin, in time with the music. It looked ridiculous and I laughed myself silly.

Flans made a comment after Lie Still that they liked to keep things fresh and moving forward so they were going to play a song from their first album. And they played Nothing's Gonna Change My Clothes, which was exciting as I had seen it on the St. Louis set but haven't heard it in a couple of years.

At the end of the song, as the guys all left the stage, Danny made Marty go down the ramp ahead of him so he could go last and then did his penguin walk all the way back down to the bottom. It had the effect of looking like someone miming walking down stairs behind a couch or counter, but with an actual incline. Totally silly and adorable and I loved him for it.

Victor came out to do setlists and gave a couple to some guys on my left. Then he reached into his back pocket and pulled out a folded one and held it out to me like contrabandn with this half glance at me that said "I know you are gonna like this, but I'm not gonna smile or anything so I don't tip you off." And sure enough, he'd tucked the St. Louis set in behind the Nashville one for me. Have I mentioned he is the best? Cause he totally is.

I know I've forgotten some stuff from this one but I think I got all the best bits in. It was a hoot. Not sure when I'll get Asheville and Richmond done. I'm so backed up now, the tour might be over before I get to them. But I'll get there eventually rest assured.