Puppets Managing People

September 14 - Byham Theater - Pittsburgh, PA

Somewhere in my fangirl contract it states that I must make at least one trip to Pittsburgh every year and this year I've made two (the other was for JoCo and Marty). The roads in and out of Pittsburgh and I are getting to be old friends.

Tonight's theater may just have been the fanciest yet. The lobby alone had a much classier air about it than any of the other recent venues.

We stopped at the merch stand because our friend Marci who joined us for this stop, needed to pick up her IFC loot. Gary was considering one of JoCo's new Good Morning Tuscon T-shirts, when I noticed that the TMBG stand had acquired all new 2011 tour tees and hoodies. I, of course, needed these immediately. The T-shirt features an ape with raised fist (ala Battle For The Planet of the Apes) in technicolor orange and yellow on a white tee. It also says They Might Be Giants 2011 Tour on it, and then lists all the tour dates on the back. Available in men's and women's styles, people!! The hoodie is gray with the same ape in blue on the back and the standard Road Crew imprint on the front in white and blue. I love them both and am, in fact wearing both as I write. Apes everywhere!

The theater proved even fancier than the lobby with scultures of cherubs dancing on the ceiling and a fresco of scantily clad and topless women over the stage. Our seats were at the end of the third row, perfect for escaping to the stage front.

Jonathan opened with Skullcrusher Moutain again. (Did I say yesterday that he had played the same set as Norwich? Cause he didn't. He played Fancy Pants instead of Skullcrusher. THIS was the same set as Norwich.) He let us sing the last chorus ourselves and a really impressive number of people in the crowd were able to sing along, given that he is only the opener.

I think I might have been the only person to fill in the blank when he quizzed us on the name of the title track from Artificial Heart and I only did it cause no one else was answering. It got a good chuckle out of him.

Right before the bridge in Shop Vac, he managed to accidentally yank the chord out of his guitar. The band played on valiently while he laughed quite a bit and plugged it back in, making cracks about swearing he was a professional. Afterward, Brandon complimented him on the muffled guitar effect he had produced. Jonathan said he had used technology to achieve it so effectively.

He repeated a lot of the same banter introducing Tuscon and Nemeses, as he has pretty much every night. The hazard of hearing the same songs introduced six nights straight. And he successfully executed his lead in to I Feel Fantastic tonight that was made so humorous last night because Christian missed his cue.

Side note: There was a photographer who must have had a press pass photographing all of JoCo's set and she was using an uber-bright flash the entire time which was really blinding and distracting. I'm surprised it was allowed to continue for so long. She was right behind me for TMBG's set too but had turned the flash off. She was also informed by theater staff that the had to stop photographing after about five songs. She hadn't been bothering me nearly so much at that point but the flash earlier was obnoxious.

We did some strategic planning between acts on how best to compete with those in the rows in front of us for the stage footage in front of the drum riser, but it was essentially a non-issue as we just plain moved faster than most of them, or they didn't care to move. The other group of uber fans across the aisle from us snagged the space to our left, making for a very enthusiastic corner.

The band changed up the setlist a little bit tonight. More just rearranging the songs than changing what was played. Here's how it ran:

Guitar - When Will You Die - Judy Is Your Viet Nam - Ana Ng - Celebration - We Live in a Dump - Birdhouse in Your Soul - Clap Your Hands - Withered Hope - Battle for the Planet of the Apes - Cloisonne - Mesopotamians - Spoiler Alert - New York City - Particle Man - Doctor Worm - You Probably Get That A Lot - Careful What You Pack - Istanbul - Can't Keep Johnny Down. Encore - Lie Still, Little Bottle - Fingertips - Dead. Encore 2 - Damn Good Times

Marty got things started with some hearty kick drum into The Guitar. Flans remembered at the last second not to swear and instead said "mother loving bass" when introducing Danny's solo. Linnell also took a Future of Sound solo, after which Flans said, "Thank you, John" which amused me for some reason.

At the end of the song, while we waved at the lion, Flans pretended the show was over and started thanking people and saying goodnight. Heh.

After the song, Flans somewhat oddly yelled "Good evening people of Mr. Small's!" I believe he merely meant to riff on the fact that they usually play Mr. Small's in Pittsburgh and thus the fans would have seen them play there. But it was a bit confusing, especially considering he kept talking about Mr. Small's and never once mentioned the name of the theater where they were playing. Couldn't have made the people who worked for the Byham feel very appreciated but it was certainly funny.

I got super confused by the end of The Guitar because Danny mysteriously vanished from the stage without me noticing where he had gone. I could still hear him playing from somewhere out of view but I could not for the life of me figure out where he had gone until I saw him climb back out from behind the sound board at the side of the stage minus his in-ears, partway through When Will You Die. Apparently they weren't working and he had gone back and had John Carter detach them from him while he played backstage.

He finished the song without them and John came out with either new ones or repaired ones before they started Judy, but Danny waved him off because Marty had already started the song. The really funny part was watching John and Danny's mad race to get them back on while the band plowed into Ana Ng, obviously trying to get them set before the first chorus where the missing bass would be terribly noticible. It actually seemed at first like the band was gonna riff for a while on the opening to wait for him, but Linnell missed that memo and started singing so they were forced to proceed without him. And damned if they didn't get everything back together again to slide back in perfectly to that first bass rhythm I love so much. Go team!

They faked me out playing Celebration so early in the show. Never EVER gonna complain about hearing it, but I like it better a little later in as an energy booster post-puppet show.

Flans has started marking the first banter break on the setlist with "dudes". This thoroughly confused the band in Norwich the first time it appeared but now it seems to be multiplying and is written in a couple of times.

Flans joked that a quarter of the show was now over. He was also drinking tea. What's up with that? He commented that they usually play at Mr. Small's in Pittsburgh and how nice it must be for us to have a little space around us rather than having everyone banging elbows.

I am absolutely certain there was an entire other conversation that occured in this break but I have no memory of what it was. Maybe someone else remembers? The only part I do remember is at the end someone placed a poster they had made on the stage and Flans commented that people had started putting things on the stage so it must be time to get back to the music. He said he just wanted one more sip of tea and told Linnell to introduce the song.

Linnell said the song was written by Mr. Flansburgh and that it was about living in a dump. They started they song, but Flans completely bungled the start of the vocal. He had everyone stop and explained that he had gotten distracted doing some inner exploration of the true meaning of the song. He made a joke about therapy that I don't remember the details of, before starting again.

Linnell's version of calling for the guitars in Birdhouse tonight was "You know what I'm talking about." Incidentally, the previous night he yelled this same thing after the first time he sang "make a little birdhouse in your soul."

As Marty started up the intro for Clap Your Hands, Flans started making paging announcements about a lost drum kit on stage. He was paging it's owner, then issuing warnings that the drum kit was going insane. Meanwhile, Marty was revving up for one of the most collosally epic drum solos I have yet seen him perform. He just kept going faster and faster and faster as Flans egged him on until his entire arms were just a blur and it did not seem physically possible that he was still playing a rhythm (and he was).The crowd around me was also going insane and I believe there was a collective "wow" issued from the audience as he slipped back into the clapping rhythm as if nothing had happened.

As the Flans started to sing, Danny started gesturing at the drum to Dan and Marty. They weren't getting what he was looking at until he walked up to the bass drum and started poking at the alien to illustrate that the front of the drum had split clear across the front. I've seen Marty wreck some pretty good shit, but I think I can honestly say this is the first time I have actually seen him LITERALLY wreck his one good drum kit. Now THAT's rock and roll!

I totally forgot to clap as I watched fascinated as Danny went to explain the situation to Victor and Victor came out to receive some instructions from Marty (except I realized afterward, I think I was clapping subconsciously). Victor went hunting for something in a trunk while the guys on stage finished the song and proceeded into Withered Hope.

As Flans explained how Battle for the Planet of the Apes was going to work and started a people versus ape war between the floor and the balcony, Danny gestured Victor out onto the stage. Victor proceeded to use a utility knife to slice the drum head away from the drum which was a vaguely painful thing to watch as the poor little alien was striped away leaving an open drum with a sand bag in it. Immediately, the guy off to our left started asking for the drum head but it was whisked away back stage.

Unsuprisingly, the people won the battle but Flans said he sympathized with all the lefty apes. He keeps making jokes about Rise of the Planet of the Apes and how he hasn't seen the movie but that one day the apes will rise.

Flans talked again about the upcoming Dan Miller Day in Rochester and encourage people to drive up. He said Dan would be accepting cookies and cakes at the merch stand throughout the evening and in fact even during the show, as Dan would be sitting that one out to gorge himself at the merch stand. Linnell suggested that perhaps there Cleveland show was closer but he got a ton of "boooos" from the crowd. He was quite surprised at the apparently animosity towards Cleveland and said he had touched a nerve. Flans pointed out that the Cleveland show was sold out so if these people wanted to see another show it was either going to have to be Rochester or Grand Rapids. I believe Linnell also suggested Detroit or Chicago, and pointed out they would be on the west coast in November. Then he said that pretty much if you were in America, they would be getting to your city eventually. And Flans contributed "We just want our country back" which got a lot of cheers.

Then Flans brought out one of the giant Join Us posters and started to unroll it on the stage. He said usually steered away from any of the obvious associations with the word "giant" but that they couldn't resist making these posters. He said they had had them on sale in Asbury Park and sold like 8 so they were really excited and brought a ton of them. But now no one was buying them (which explains why they have dropped the price twice already since the tour began). He suggested that if you had a barn or a really tripped out dorm room you should buy one because they had been really expensive to produce. Someone in the crowd suggested they sign the poster and Flans said that was the best thing about the poster: they didn't need to sign it because it was so huge you could sign it yourself. Then someone asked if they could have the poster and Flans said no, he was going to use the same one tomorrow because it was too expensive to give away.

Then as he was going to hand the poster back to someone back stage he tossed the plastic wrapping onto the drum riser so a bit of it was sticking into the open bass drum. Marty yelled "Hey, no, no, no" but Flans didn't here him and Marty was trying to attract Danny's attention to come remove it for him. Eventually Linnell picked it up and handed it to Marty for proper disposal.

After Cloisonne, Flans said he had been looking at the wiki and there were people on there calling the bass clarinet a bass sax. "It's the black saxophone."

When Linnell was introducing The Mesopotamians, he said that their new album was getting a lot of great reviews but that a lot of them seemed to have these back-handed jabs at The Else like "It's way better than that last album." And he said he was still really pleased with The Else. I wanted to tell him that, while Join Us is my new favorite, The Else was my previous one and remains my number two. Flans joked that there was only one good song on The Else and it was the one they were about to play.

The Avatars pretended to be phoning in from London again. Flans had his hand on the side of Blue's head like his was holding in an ear piece and was receiving messages from someone saying that they couldn't hear him. Blue asked Green if he had been checking out that new Jonathan Coulton album. Green said he had. Blue said he really liked it and it was great was was happening for that guy's career but he really envisioned capes. He thought the whole band should be in capes. Then he just kept saying capes. He said he was going to get a cape. Then he remembered he didn't have any arms. Green pointed out that he had just had a hand. The hand reappeared and Blue seemed to be getting a message in his ear piece confirming that he didn't have any arms.

Blue said his next career move was going to be band management. "Puppets Managing People." He said that was going to be the name of his company, P.M.P. Apparently, people are puppets too.

Then he said he was interested in other things too, like singing songs and began singing "Best Friend" by Harry Nielsson. Green joined him briefly. They didn't do the whole thing but at least a verse and a chorus. Finally, they eventually got around to doing Spoiler Alert.

The most significant setlist change they made was dropping Alphabet of Nations in favor of New York City.

During the accordion section, Linnell asked Flans what the Anthony Hopkins ventriloquist movie was. The guy off to our left yelled Magic. Flans called the guy his personal Google and pretended to enter Anthony Hopkins Ventriloquest movie into Google and then the guy yelled Magic again. Then Flans asked Linnell what the movie was like. Linnell said it was like their lives with the puppets. He said it was uncomfortably similar.

Danny almost could execute a successful Doctor Worm leap because Flans was in his way, but he managed it all the same. Not nearly the height gained as the previous night.

Flans decided near the end that he wanted to do a band intro. He told all the guys to pick a specific noise on their instrument to represent themselves. He said to use the one they thought was really cool but typically had no practical application in a show. They he said to play it when he got to them and keep it going until they were done.

He started with Marty, introducing him as Skellbaby. Marty leaned his elbow deep into one of this toms and drummed next to it with a stick as he released and reapplied the pressure.

Then Flans introduced Danny, as Skellbaby's brother, Norg (or at least we think that's what it was) and Danny added a super fuzzy sliding noise that sounded like a motorcycle to the mix.

At this point Marty switched from his elbow to his foot, putting one shoe on the top of the drum and pressing it a good inch into the surface. I almost missed the rest of the intros because I was trying so desperately to get a picture of Marty standing on his drum.

Next up was Dan, aka, Skullbaby's sister-in-law, Lisa. I don't even remember what Dan's noise really sounded like except it was really screechy.

Flans introduced himself as Ding Dong but sadly we have forgotten what Linnell's pseudonym was. He added some Kaoss Pad noises to the mix while Flans made ugly noises with his guitar and it all came together as one of the ugliest sounding band intros in history.

Dan did another great Istanbul intro but had to do one of those funny things where he stopped and had the audience stop clapping because he wasn't ready yet. Then he instructed everyone to snap later, but they all clapped instead. They did two fake endings to the song and Flans did his foot hopping RIGHT in my face. He also came out and bowed to both sides of the audience during one of the last songs and leaned right over my head in very imposing fashion.

During on of the encores (I think) Flans said they loved Pittsburgh, they loved Mr. Small's, they loved all the venues. Linnell said they even loved the Electric Banana. Lots of jokes were made about this about the statute of limitations having passed on the Electric Banana. Flans still remembered it being horrible and advised to avoid the Banana. "The Banana is actually electric."

Flans announced that they would be passing out Join Us window clings after the show. He said they had like 8000 of them because they had realized from working with children that they liked free stuff and could be satisfied with something really cheap.

After the last encore, the guy next to us asked Marty about getting the drum head and Marty pretended to purposefully mishear him and mimed picking up the entire drum like he was gonna hand it to him.

I got totally trapped at the front due to sticker distribution and ended up having to climb over chairs to get out of the way, and then climb back out again to get my setlist from Victor. Then I had to wait a while longer for Gary to get unstuck from the other side.

In the meantime, I was being entertained by Marty, who, as he neared the end of his line of people waiting for stickers, put the pile down on the stage and told be to each take one and announced that he was going to supervize the proceedings. Then he stood, nodding gravely at each person who filed past as they took their sticker.

Eventually, I was really only hanging around because I wanted to see if Marty was really going to give that other guy the drum head (and I thought, maybe if he did, he might give me the snare drum head he's been giving out every night since almost everyone else had left.

And I was glad I stayed because otherwise I would have missed seeing Marty lie down on the drum riser and rest his head on the sandbag inside his newly open-fronted bass drum, tuck up his feet and pretend to take a nap. It was pretty much the most adorable thing I have ever seen, FYI.

Then he walked back stage and picked up the tattered drum head and appeared to be looking for something. Wow, thought, I. He's gonna give it to that guy (who was also still waiting around) after all. He turned out to be looking for something to cut it fully apart with so there were two pieces, I assumed because the guy had a buddy waiting with him and that way they'd each get a piece.

What I did not count on was Marty to came back out with the pieces of the drum head and hold them up, catch my eye and mouth "Do you want one?" Um....yeah! Then he indicated I should pick which half I wanted. Here presented a conundrum, because I wanted the half with the little red alien on it rather than the part that just said "They Might," but I felt like a should let the other guy who had been waiting for it have the better half. But I figured, Marty did give me first pick so I picked the one I really wanted. Oh my goodness, the grin on my face was probably ridiculous.

Marty said this wasn't gonna happen too often. I agreed. I can't even remember if I thanked him. I hope I did.

Fortunately, the winner of the other half was really good natured about it, and we took pictures of it pieced back together before going our separate ways. Pretty sure I will never get a cooler souvenier from the band. Marty has been far more generous with me of late than I feel I have earned. He really is the sweetest guy :-)

One more show down. Two to go. This week anyway :-)