Not one of my best show experiences, though it had little to do with the band or the quality of the show. I was in a terrible funk due to outside factors. The theater, though a very nice venue, was the only seated one on this trip. My seat was in the middle of an aisle with no one seated on either side of me. The crowd was very low energy, only standing when instructed to, except for the person directly in front of me who stood for the whole show, blocking my view. My friends, Rebecca and John, had joined the trip for this show but were seated elsewhere in the theater. Plus, you know, Valentine's Day and I was without a partner. I know, blah, blah, whine, whine. I'm just saying I wasn't in an optimum mood to enjoy a show.
I will say, this show went much more smoothly than the previous time I saw the band in Charlotte. That was, without a doubt, the most disaster ridden show I have ever seen. I was very pleased to see that didn't hold true at this performance.
JoCo setlist: Code Monkey - Sticking It To Myself - I'm Your Moon - Good Morning Tucson - Skullcrusher Mountain - Still Alive - Re: Your Brains - I Feel Fantastic
TMBG setlist: She's An Angel - Drink! - When Will You Die - Celebration - Birdhouse In Your Soul - Damn Good Times - Why Does The Sun Really Shine? - Never Knew Love - Battle For The Planet Of The Apes - Old Pine Box - Cowtown - Snowball In Hell - Mr. Me - Older - Ana Ng - S-E-X-X-Y - Careful What You Pack - Epic Fail Baloney Sandwiches - Paranoid - Spoiler Alert - Dead - Cloisonné - We Live In A Dump - Withered Hope - James K. Polk - The Mesopotamians Encore - How Can I Sing Like A Girl? - Can't Keep Johnny Down Encore 2 - Fingertips - Istanbul
The band added in a couple of songs they hadn't played recently in honor of Valentine's Day. Namely, She's An Angel and Never Knew Love. The band really does not have a lot of love songs, or any truly traditional ones for that matter. But I figure She's An Angel is about as close as they get.
My personal favorite quote from Flansburgh's introduction to the Ape battle, while urging people to stand up: "I'm 52. I'm standing. What's your excuse?"
In the Snowball bridge, when asked if he was making a good income, Joe replied that his friends liked to call him the zero percent. "I live off the blood of other people. I'm a vampire, Paul. An economic vampire. I just like sitting around the coffee shop, counting my money and laughing at all the suckers. Oh wait, I said that out loud."
The Avatars pulled out the Epic Fail Baloney Sandwiches jingle again. I guess they got tired of shilling Pandor for an evening. Blue made a point of reading from their contract which stated that they were obligated to perform one song by They Might Be Giants. But, deciding that TMBG were't listening, they admitted that they preferred heavy metal and that their original band name was the Ozatars of Oz, which led into Paranoid. Afterward, Blue called for a sea of hands and said they would join us if they had hands. Then Flans briefly put his hand up in the frame as if it was the Avatar's hand. "What was that?" asked Green. "I don't know," said Blue. "Just some guy."
Flans made a joke at the end of the show about Jonathan Coulton's T-shirts which I don't recall now. But when they came back for the first encore, Flans made a point of saying that they were only kidding. Linnell said the whole point of their tour was to sell T-shirts and that the whole elaborate live show was all in support of T-shirt sales. He said they were working on a plan to send the T-shirts out on tour by themselves so that the band could just stay home. Flans added that they were training the Avatars to replace them. He then pointed out the Avatars Twitter feed and the fact that they only followed Ashton Kutcher and the woman who had knitted them. Then he got distracted realizing how difficult it was to say "Ashton Kutcher" out loud.
I know I've told this story before, but somewhere near the end of the show, I must have been watching with a particularly dour expression on my face. Because Dan suddenly caught my eye out in the middle of the orchestra, and quirked a face at me that clearly said, "Hey, smile!" It was a very small thing, but it actually made me feel better.
For tonight's episode of Where's Dan? at the end of Fingertips, he appeared in the balcony up to the right of the stage. It took everyone, included the spotlight operator, a while to figure out where he was. Everyone could hear him, but no one could see him. The guys on stage were all looking around trying to figure out where he had gone. Dan finally had to wave at them to get their attention and make his location known. And then he needed to signal to Marty at the end to coordinate the finale of the song. It was pretty funny.
And then the band went straight into Istanbul, without an introduction, while Dan came down from the balcony. Which worked out pretty well, since we had just had a big guitar solo anyway.
Good show, despite my bad mood. Though frankly it can't hold a candle to my experience the following day, which was one of the most positive I have had.
Here are a few pictures to tide you over until I can get that next recap done.
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