Hooray!!

September 13, 2011 - The State Theatre - Ithaca, NY

Oooo, this was a good one. Lots of great banter and a perfect high-energy-enducing spot by the stage.

We arrived at the State what should have been about an hour before doors. Our intention was to wander around town for a bit before the show since it was another seated one and there was no need for being in a line. As we passed the building, we heard the band sound checking You Don't Like Me! But, spoiler alert, they didn't actually play it at the show. Do I still get to count that as having heard the song? :-)

We wandered up and down some of the streets of Ithaca, killing time. Cute little college town. They have a waffle bar, which I thought was exciting. Also lots of churches. On our way back to the theater, Dan Miller walked past us but he either didn't recognize us or pretended not to. Hard to say, as I've never seen any indication that Dan does recognize me. I followed his lead and pretended I didn't recognize him either.

Despite what was listed on the theater's website, it turned out doors weren't until seven so we ended up having to wait longer than I expected to. Dan walked back past us as did almost all the crew. Gary, saw Linnell get on the bus but I wasn't looking.

When we finally got in, we took up our most excellent seats. Front row center. Pretty much couldn't be any better. And the equipment was set up far enough back that the keyboard didn't even blockade the view. It was supremely perfect.

I ended up chatting quite a bit before the show with someone who recognized me from my recaps. If you happen to be reading, I realized I never got your name, but hi! Great to meet you!

Jonathan Coulton did the same set he did in Norwich, but this time with his new bass player, Brandon Patton. JoCo has excellent taste in bass players as this is his third straight I've really enjoyed (though I've still got a soft spot for Chris, sorry guys). But Brandon was really lively and fun to watch. There was this hilarious moment when the show organizer brought the guys out towels and Brandon didn't need his and didn't know what to do with it. So he tucked the top of it his shirt, so it dangled down like a bib. JoCo said it was like an absorbant cravat. Then he said that he was going to call his next band The Absorbant Cravats.

He has been refering to the band as the Jonathan Coulton All Stars on this trip. Tonight they were the All New Jonathan Coulton All Stars because of the new bass player.

The other funny moment was when he was introducing I Feel Fantastic and saying he wished there was a word for how we made him feel. "Oh wait, maybe there is." Then there was a moment of silence before he said in a dramatic stage whisper "Start playing the drums." Teehee.

In the break before acts, a number of people started standing up by the stage, so we ended up joining them rather than loose our piece of stage in front our our seats. But the security guards came and made everyone sit back down after a few minutes, saying no one was allowed to stand by the stage. Scott immediately appeared to correct this problem and as soon as Flans said stand up we were back by the stage again without incident.

Marty hit the stage first and stood up behind his drums banging on something that looked like a round metal fire bell on a rope, while simultaneously stomping on his kick pedal. Way to set the tone for the show, Marty!

Flans started off the silly banter right off the bat with his excellent opening. "We're They Might Be Giants. It's a total gas to be here in Ithaca. Here at the historic State Theatre where my cousin Alan saw 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea."

They played the exact same setlist as they did in Norwich, without even bothering to re-write it.

There were a number of kids in the audience but Flans didn't seem too fussed about it, as evidenced by his intro to Danny's bass solo in The Guitar. "All I want to hear is the electric bass and all I want to hear is the motherfucking bass." We did another round of "When I say Danny, you say Danny" complete with Flans yelling "thank you" at he end.

Linnell also did a Future of Sound solor following the bass solo. Then Flans instructed everyone to break it down to just the audience clapping and Marty's kick drum. Flans said he thought the kick drum could be a bit louder. So the drum got turned up and Marty started kicking it harder resulting in a really booming drum beat.that lasted through the next several songs until Marty finally waved at John Carter, gave one kick on the drum and pointed down in an emphatic plea to lower it's volume.

Linnell amusingly goofed the lyrics to Withered Hope. "Brand new motorbike was in love with a brand new motorbike."

I've got to say, whether because of our spot directly in front of the keyboard or just in tune vibes or what, but holy hell, eye contact with Linnell, Batman. Just over and over and over. Intense.

They took an extended banter break before the next run of songs. Flans said that normally when the stage was painted black you expected it to be all solid. But he found this one strip on stage in front of the drum riser that was really springy. "I don't know if it's a comment on my recent strategic weight gain or what, but this spot seems a little tender."

Linnell said it reminded him of that movie with all the trap doors in the stage. He couldn't remember what it was called. Flans suggested Noises Off. Linnell said sure, he'd go with that. But then he said, no, they had just been talking about it. Dan said it was Charade, which turned out to be the right one. Linnell called it faux-Hitchcock. Flans said he was thinking Noises Off with Carol Burnett. He made a joke about seeing it on PBS. Then he went on this riff about what a funny lady Carol Burnett is and used some word I've never even heard before.

He asked the students in the crowd from Cornell and Ithaca how their first week back was going. He made a snide comment about post-graduate work.

Flans mentioned their upcoming Rochester show and asked Dan if Rochester was technically in the Finger Lakes District. Dan said yes. Flans said he wasn't sure if the finger extended that far. Dan made a fist as said Rochester was right in the fist of the lakes. Flans said that he used to think the Finger Lakes were called that because they were small finger-sized lakes and had only recently realized that it was because they were shaped like fingers. Linnell said they were actually called the Finger Lakes because they were full of fingers. Severed fingers with nails painted black that float to the surface.

Flans said how nice it was to be playing in a theater as classy as The State because they were used to playing in places that he said the technical term for was "shitholes."

There might have been something else tossed into this ongoing banter section that I've forgotten but eventually Flans said "let's get back to the music" and asked Linnell what the next song was. Linnell replied that it was a song about "We who live in a dump." Flans said that was appropriate given their recent discussion.

When Flans was introducing Marty at the beginning of Clap Your Hands, Marty kind of went insane and was playing with his head thrown back and his tongue sticking all the way out. I think I have a pretty entertaining picture of itm. Flans didn't yell "ah shit, clap your hands", instead choosing to insert his swearing elsewhere with "stomp your damn feet."

Before the Battle for the Planet of the Apes Flans had all of us on the floor turn around and cheer for the people in the balconey. He said they were all music reviewers from the Ithaca Journal and were all blogging the show from the balconey. He said it was the first time they had ever had a show where a third of the audience was on the guest list. Then he divided us up with the floor being the people and the balconey being the apes. The people still won, of course. But Flans said they were really with the apes. Whilee they were playing the song, in one of the breaks while the Johns were playing, Danny was doing this kind of surfing dance that really made me giggle.

As the band readied for Cloisonne, Flans did another "This show isn't going so well" video with the audience. He told the bachelor party story again, this time adding in that the best part of the party was that the waitor forgot to bring them their check. He gave us all our instructions to look very sad and be quiet and then shot the video, once again including the band who all looked very dejected.

Immediately afterward, Danny pointed out this one guy off on the right that was ruining the whole thing because he was grinning maniacly and waving. I couldn't see him but Danny was describing him in the mic. Linnell said they would have to CG the guy out of the video.

Flans asked what song they were playing and Linnell pointed at the bass clarinet. Flans joked that it was a bass sax. Lots of people in the crowd started shouting song requests and Flans pointed out that none of them were requesting bass clarinet songs. He mentioned Join Us and asked the guy he had given the signed vinyl copy of Join Us to as the beginning of the show, to hold up his copy. Linnell walked over and took it from the guy and held it in one of the lights, wiggling it back and forth so that it flashed and glowed before returning it.

The audience seemed to really like the Crazy Train cover at this performance. The Avatars claimed they were appearing to us over Skype because they were performing at Koko in London tomorrow. Green said they were appearing with Buckethead with a special appearance by Saddlebag. Green suggested Boilerplate too and then just kept randomly saying Boilerplate throughout the rest of the banter.

Green suddenly said he needed to get back on script and pretended like he was reading off something. "They Might Be Giants have a new album out called Join Us." He said that Warner Music Group was preventing them from performing their song over Skype so they had to sing a They Might Be Giants song called Spoiler Alert.

I think it was while the puppets were performing that Danny discovered the springy part on the floor and spent the next several songs repeatedly going back to it to bounce up and down. He even tried to get Dan to have a go but Dan wanted nothing to do with it. This eventually culminated in possibly the most epic Doctor Worm leap I have ever witnessed where he climbed up on the drum riser and positively launched himself into the air and down onto the bouncy floor. I swear to god he cleared the top of Marty's head on the drums at the top of his arc. I have a picture that is super blurry but he is at least five feet off the ground.

As Linnell was picking up the accordion for Particle Man, he told Marty not to start playing You Probably Get That A Lot until he had time to put the accordion down. Marty said "OK" in a mock angry voice as if he was offended but he couldn't hold it and started laughing.

After, You Probably Get That A Lot some guy off to my left shouted "Hooray!" This really amused Linnell, who pointed it out and repeated it several times during later banter.

Flans announced this Rochester show again and said that it was going to be Dan Miller Day since he is a Rochester native. He told us that if any of us were going or we knew anyone who was going who was a baker we should bring cookies and cakes for Dan. He said they were going to play every song they at with a guitar solo. "It's going to be rough for Dan but we're just going to sit back and enjoy the view." Dan looked alternately amused and embarassed.

Flans mentioned that they were going to be in Pittsburgh before Rochester and joked about how that made no sense if you looked at a map. He said if you were wondering why they weren't more successful, this was why because they couldn't read a map properly.

Later he mentioned that they were going to be in Grand Rapids. He said Grand Rapids was like Detroit but without all the nothing. Then he said they had played there before and asked if that was where the hotdog stand Yesterdog was. He said that somewhere in the Midwest there is a hotdog stand called Yesterday which he thought was a poor name for a hotdog place because hotdogs were not something you wanted to bring back memories about. Then he tried to renig about saying bad things about Grand Rapids because he knew nothing about it. He said it was just easy to joke because he didn't know anything about it. Linnell suggested it was easy, like swearing at a show with kids in the audience. Linnell said that he personally thought Grand Rapids was great. Flans then said, "Everything I say is a lie. Including when I just said that everything I say is a lie."

I have now completely stopped paying attention to the rest of the band when they play Judy and now just end up watching Marty play the drums. And I'll never be sorry about it because it is such an incredible thing to see. It just explodes my mind every time.

Linnell talked about the videos made for Johnny before they played the song.

At a couple of points in the show Flans made jokes about the heat in the venue (it was very hot). First with "Is it hot in here or is it just Dan Miller on the electric guitar?" And then later, "Is it just hot in here or is it just Danny Weinkauf on the bass?"

Before Istanbul at the end of the set, Flans said he had mentioned that Thursday was Dan Miller Day, but really everyday is Dan Miller Day. "Ladies and gentlemen, Dan Miller, perhaps the finest electric guitar player in They Might Be Giants. Now on acoustic guitar." And then Dan proceeded to blow our faces off with his Istanbul solo. As they started the song proper, Marty made the most ridiculous face that I wish I had a picture of. It was priceless and adorable and probably completely unreplicateable.

Flans set about thanking people after Lie Still, Little Bottle. When he got to the tech I hadn't identified yet, he said his name was Mr. Brunette. He said Mr. Brunnette claimed it was French but Flans was doubtful. He thought it sounded like an assumed name because the guy was on the lame and joked that the guy should just come clean because they were easy and wouldn't judge. This really cracked up Danny and Dan. Dan in particular was really doing the full blown Miller laugh, which is one of my favorite things to see.

Linnell introduced Fingertips saying it was like a fractal. "It's made up of lots of little songs and inside those are even smaller parts of songs and inside those there are fingers with black fingernails."

Flans did one of the best Heart Attack ad libs ever. " H-E-A-R-T attack to you girl. Sell the dog, sell the house, sell the kids. I'm going back to my post-praduate thesis."

He also did a "To the M, to the Y" thing after Mysterious Whisper.

Flans didn't even wait til the end of Dead before leaving the stage, leaving Linnell to say goodbye and thank you.

Flans gave Dan one more shoutout for his solo in Damn Good Times and then they wrapped it up.

The security people tried to shove people along away from the stage, but Marty came out to hand out sticks and a drum head he had doodled all over so people got an excuse to daudle for a minute and I had time to snag my setlist from Victor.

Had to loan Marty my Sharpie again to sign for people and I figured I'd finally have him sign my Join Us as long as he had my marker. But he forgot to even give it back. Fortunately, he stopped to talk to a friend and I was able to snag him to sign for me and retrieve my marker, but I was terribly super awkward about it and I felt like a dope later. But Marty assured me later I wasn't completely rude as I felt like I'd been so I guess I was worried about nothing.

And I now only need to snag Danny to sign my CD which you would think would be easy but which has proven to be a challenge. (Well, and Linnell but I have just accepted that that is never gonna happen.)

Anyway, totally awesome show. I'm sure I still forgot some stuff even though I feel like I remember this one pretty vividly. Can't wait to see if anyone shows up with cookies and cakes in Rochester.