Concord, NH Show Not Going So Well

September 10, 2011 - Capitol Center For The Arts - Concord, NH

This is almost the closest to home we will see the band play this tour. Boston is a little closer but not by much. This was another seated show, so once again we avoided all the line waiting. we did get there an hour early just because I have now learned to build extra travel time in because I keep having traffic disasters but today it wasn't necessary.

We watched a small army of black and white clad ushers enter the theater while we waited. That's a sure sign that this is a "fancy" show. The venue has a very spacious lobby that we were let into about 7:00 and a full out, enormous theater on the second level that we entered about a half hour before the show. Place held a ton of people and by the time the show started was very nearly full so they must have had good ticket sales.

Our seats we not super but they weren't terrible. They were on the left side of the orchestra in the middle of the fifth row. We had to do some contemplating on how we were going to get out when Flans had everyone flood the front. Solution seemed to be, climb over people.

There were a ton of parents who had brought children to this show. I saw kids as young as four. I really questioned whether the kids were going to enjoy it but all the ones around me seemed to have a fantastic time.

JoCo changed up his setlist a little tonight. He dropped Sticking It To Myself and Alone At Home and added in Nemeses. He was a little more loose with the banter but really only as it related to introducing songs. Adam, the bass player, was wearing one of the new Good Morning Tuscon shirts that JoCo has for sale at the merch booth. There were obviously a ton of people in this crowd who were there for JoCo as much for TMBG. There were people whooping and hollering and singing along quite enthusiastically. It was fun. Jonathan had some feedback trouble with the Zendrum in the middle of Mr. Fancy Pants and stopped playing for a minute until it cleared up. And some people started clapping and he had to tell them that the song wasn't over. At one point JoCo asked the sound guy to turn up his guitar. he said he felt like he was only rocking at 72% and there were more percents to be had.

The change over between acts happens fast and the new intro for TMBG started at 9:02. It's a piece of horn heavy instrumental music that I sort of feel like I should recognize but I don't. Of course the first thing Flans did was haul everyone up to the front. We had to climb out over the people on our left. We ended up, more or less in the second row on the far left side of the stage, with some kids in front of us so no trouble seeing. My viewing angle was a little weird due to lights on the far side of the stage. Dan and Flans kept playing right in front of one of the banks of LED lights which was difficult to stare into and impossible to take pictures of. Linnell had one of the lights behind his shoulder but that one didn't bother me as much. And I was watching Marty through a foot high gab between two of the lamps on the light rig I was standing next to. Odd view, but it worked well enough.

Once everyone was at the stage, Flans started handing out random records to the people in the front row. Someone got a Burl Ives record. Another one was something featuring Chubby Checkers. Flans made a joke about all of them currently being available for 89 cents on some music site.

The setlist was exactly the same as the previous night again, except they dropped Old Pine Box. So once again this is just a recap of the unique stuff (mostly the dialogue).

Flans was wearing the same outfit again, except with different pants. Linnell went for the tan T-shirt shirt with the blue collar and cuffs. Marty had on his German flag tee and Dan, a standard Dan button-up. And hallelujah, it was a finally a red pants day! Woot!

Linnell commented that he felt like he had more phones than usual on his keyboard. Flans said he had a new phone and had put it on Linnell's keyboard for safe keeping, so there was a double dose of iPhones on the keyboard.  He said he felt like a teacher that had confiscated them. Flans said that if anyone in the audience had any other items they were worried about loosing or getting damaged, like phones, expensive cigarette lighters or watches that they would like to store on the keyboard they could pass them up. At some point he also made a joke about having a pick of phones to send a text message from but we can't remember if that was during this section, or later when Dan was at the keyboard.

Before Cloisonné, Flans said that it was great to be there, but paused before saying the name of the city so a number of people provided it. He said he knew a number of recent gaffes had been made regarding geography in New England and it was a sore subject so he didn't want to go there. Then he mentioned the new album as said that it was unique for them because at least one member of the band played on every track. "We've been farming out or albums for the last 10 years." But he was pretty certain nearly every song featured someone in the band. And then he introduced Danny on keys and Linnell on bass clarinet. "An instrument rarely seen in a rock setting." Flans goofed the words to the song a little, which was funny, as usual.

Flans said the band in The Mesopotamians had a much more difficult touring schedule than theirs due to the need to travel through time.

There was a brief false start at the beginning of Whistling in the Dark, just a couple of words in. I thing something might have been off with the accordion, but it was impossible to know since it was completely dark. Danny played almost the entire song facing the big fan at the back of the stage. I think he was a little overheated in his long sleeved shirt.

The band's Crazy Train cover seems to be getting a good response from the audience. I like it because it looks like they are having so much fun with it, Dan in particular.

The Avatars appeared in larger than life sizes on the giant screen. Blue stared at us with his 8 foot high knitted eyeball. Green commented that he had hair in his eye. Blue said that it had been a long summer and he had let himself go. Blue said that he had written the next song himself. Green stared at him completely silent. Blue said that the song was credited to TMBG but he'd like to think of it as a collaborative effort between them and the Avatars. They said they would be doing a meet and greet afterward, while the Giants huddled on the bus, complaining. Blue showed off his soul patch and said it was coming in nicely. He said he was feeling very confident in his masculinity as a sock puppet.

The band started Spoiler Alert with Danny sitting on the side of the drum riser frantically gesturing at John Carter to turn up the sound on Dan's guitar. He played perched there for a while before wandering over to the other side. At the end of the song, Green Avatar started wizzing back and forth by the camera making car noises, as if he was a speeding car zipping by. And Blue practiced his mime walking down stairs act in the foreground.

Introducing Shoehorn, Blue said that they liked TMBG's early work, back when they were still hungry. After the Avatars finished, Flans told us we should stop clapping because they had closed the suitcase and the puppets couldn't hear us anymore.

Flans commented that Free Ride got a pretty good response, that usually it only seemed to be popular with the security guards. Then he decided that Crazy Train was even more popular with the security guards, but tonight there weren't any security guards. Linnell said sometimes the whole center of the crowd is just security guards.

When Flans divided us up for the Battle for the Planet of the Apes tonight, he attempted to do a better job of explaining which members of the band each group was supposed to be chanting with. Unfortunately, he had gotten the people chanting first and neglected to tell them to stop so we could barely hear him and I think most people missed his explanation. The people didn't stop chanting after their first round for a while, so Danny stepped out and started conducting them. This seemed to work much better as he started them up and cut them off at the right times while Flans did the same with the Apes on the other side. But the people still won. The apes will forever be disappointed.

Then Flans started telling us this story about a bachelor party he was at recently. One of his good friends couldn't attend so in the middle of the party they had all the guests sit around the table and shot a video of them all sitting completely silently and then sent it to his friend with the caption "Bachelor party not going so well." He said it was a big hit and decided he wanted to do the same thing with us. He wanted us to all stand completely silently and he would film us and then post it on YouTube with the caption "Concord, NH show not going so well." He said it anyone yelled in the middle or tried to do anything funny, he wouldn't post it. Then he told us all too look sad and started the video. And you can in fact see the results on YouTube. He actually filmed the band all standing there silently too but he cut that part out. He was convinced the video was going to go viral.



Flans commented that that was the perfect time to make the video because it was in the middle of the audience participation portion of the show. But he still didn't introduce the call backs for Drink! so not all the audience participated in that section.

Something happened at the beginning of Sapphire Bullets that caused Marty to have to run the opening riff for an extra long time while something went on on the other side of the stage, but I can't remember at all what it was. There was also one beat on the wooden block that Marty missed with his stick in the middle of the song and he made a really cute "crap!" face.

Flans flubbed up the middle of Celebration by starting to sing the bridge while Linnell and Dan were still singing the "ooo, ooo, ooo"s from the previous chorus. There was a brief moment of confusion as they quickly tried to determine whether to go with Flans or continue the song the way it was supposed to go, but Flans got back in line with everyone else.

Dan came down to the keyboard to do Alphabet of Nations. Flans asked him which song he would like to play. Dan pointed at the one of the setlist he wanted to do. Then followed my favorite quote of this show, as Flans said "Use your words, Dan." Dan shook his head, no. Flans said it was a union thing, the band wasn't allowed to talk. Flans asked him again what song he wanted to do and Dan used the Kaoss Pad to make some noises that could almost maybe have sounded like "Alphabet" if you really wanted them to. Flans said that Dan was actually the teacher from the Peanuts. Linnell made a joke phones on his desk. And then they finally sang the song.

It wasn't quite at this point, but I don't remember where it fit in, but at some point, Flans noticed the group of people in the front wearing pink T-shirts that spelled out Join Us and pointed them out. Linnell said he had noticed them earlier and that he had felt like he was on Wheel of Fortune because he couldn't see all the letters and couldn't figure out what it spelled. At first he thought it looked like Illinois, but spelled wrong. Flans said he wanted them all to turn around and show the rest of the audience but then their shirts would be backwards. Linnell pretty quickly figured out that they would then say "USNIOJ" which he pronounced remarkably accurately.

Flans introduced the quite song for Careful What You Pack, and someone on the other side of the stage must have been in New Haven too, because they shouted "No!" just as it started which made Flans smile.

Through a lot of the show, Danny had been enjoying watching a couple of little girls who were in the front row in front of him, dancing and having a good time with their mom. When it came time to do Clap Your Hands, he was doing his exaggerated stomping and stomped across the front of the stage and planted his foot down right in front of the little one's face. It was adorable and super funny because she didn't see it coming but her sister did, so she was totally shocked and just in awe. Her mom was delighted and Danny was just laughing and laughing and the girls' reaction. Super cute.

They hit Johnny without ever indicating that it was the last song, so they were shouting thank yous as the final chords rang out. There was a slightly longer than usual pause before the encore and Victor came out to do a quick adjustment on Marty's hi-hat again. Flans came back all jazzed up for Don't Let's Start and was hopping all over the place again. Particle Man sounded a little different, just a little bit more rocking, I think. As they approached the solo at the end of Damn Good Times, Victor came out and put a sand bag over the bottom of the cymbal on the far right of Marty's kit because the previous night Marty had whacked it so hard during the solo that it had nearly bounced right off the riser, and Victor had had to run and shove it back.

Flans really dragged out the weird noises he plays on the stylophone-ish thing at the end of Lie Still, Little Bottle. Before they started Istanbul, Flans told Linnell to tell the crowd about the vinyl because he needed to talk to Marty. Linnell started to say how they had this new vinyl EP, but the guy in the front row who had been given the Burl Ives record held it up and Linnell got distracted. He started telling this story about how earlier in the year, he and Flans had spent about five weeks working on this thing for a movie and really slaving in the recording studio and then it got rejected by the movie people. But what they had come up with at the end was a total Burl Ives impression that they had been ridiculously proud of so they were really crushed that it got rejected. Then Linnell started doing an impression of running into Burl Ives in the food stamp line. "I see you boys have gone down the same path." But he said the impression in the song was way better than the one he had just done. Flans chimed in several comments too as the story went on about show business and crushing rejection. It was a pretty funny story, but sad too.

And I have no idea what Flans told Marty in the meantime. It was something about something he wanted him to play and Marty spent a minute programming something into the electronic drum pad. But I never noticed anything different, except that the gong seemed to be missing after then end of Dan's intro. And some very odd looks were exchanged between Marty and Danny after that point but I'm not sure exactly what happened. They did two fake endings to the song and Flans broke a string in his enthusiasm.

Marty high-fived Dan as he exited the stage before Dead. Flans started making goofy noises on his guitar that sounded like the Peanuts teacher again. Linnell attempted to interpret. "What's that, Dan? We should play another song? I should go to the principal's office and get my phone?" There was another bit too that Linnell couldn't interpret and just said, "yeah, uh huh." But the mention of the phone did remind Flans to collect his phone from Linnell's keyboard.

Flans spent most of Dead standing at the back of the stage de-stringing his entire guitar. He pulled the broken string off entirely and undid the tops of all the others so that all five stings were hanging down the bottom by the time he stopped and put the guitar down. I still think Dead is kind of an odd note to end the show on, but to each his own, and it was a great show regardless.

Marty came out again after and handed another signed drum head to the older of Danny's two little friends. He also gave his setlist, complete with his notes all over it to Kathy, and a stick each to Mike and Paul. My friends made out like bandits :-) I got my setlist from Victor, which was pretty amusing, as I noticed that he collected all the clipboards, started walking down the stage handing out setlists, tucked one clipboard with a setlist on it to the bottom of the pile to save it aside, then pulled that one back out for me when he got down to my end of the stage. Victor is the man!

After I have completed each of these recaps, I have remembered at least one thing I forgot to include and I have yet to go back and add all that extra stuff back in yet. We'll see how many things come back to me from tonight's show. Maybe I'll have to do a supplemental forgotten moments post.

On to an outdoor show in Vermont tonight and it looks like we'll have nice weather for it. And tomorrow, I promise pictures from section one of the tour, before we hit the road in earnest on Tuesday.