Weatherman Detective

March, 10, 2010 - Visulite - Charlotte, NC

Wow. This show was kind of a disaster on wheels. There were some really great and funny parts and the setlist was fantastic but so many things went wrong it was like having a ticket to a friend's really bad day. It actually kinda stressed me out because I felt so bad for the guys. I'm gonna kinda gloss over the bad stuff cause really, would you want someone blogging about your bad day?

We waited in a light drizzle outside the Visulite and were forced to listen to some alternately maddening and frightening conversations held by the people in front of us in line. But we had some yummy noodles from Nothing But Noodles while we waited which made up for it. Incidently, the guy who waited on us at the noodle place could have been Flans' blond cousin.

Inside, the club had several floor levels. We, of course, went for the stage-side level, which was down several steps. It was kind of like standing in a sub-basement or an orchestra pit. It was all cement and there were speakers set up on the floor on either side of the stage limiting the amount of stage space. We went for the right side despite the presence of an oddly placed trash can, right in front of the stage. We tried moving it but were informed by club staff that it had to be there because otherwise it blocked the speakers. Not sure why it needed to be there at all since it was completely inaccessible by anyone except the people standing right next to it (ie. us). I ended up wedged in a corner kind of between the speaker, the stage and the trash can. Awkward, but worth it for the great view.

Due to odd equipment and stage positioning I was also basically next to Will on the monitors, just on the otherside of the speaker platform. It was weirdly, almost like watching a show simultaniously from the front of the stage and the wings.

Jonathan Coulton did the same set as Asheville. He continues to be enormously entertaining and I continue to forget most of what he says which is a shame because it's always funny. He said he was hear to kill time while the Giants put on their elaborate costumes and make-up. Someone in the audience asked him how his thumb was (he had posted a picture on Twitter the day before of a scratch on his thumb). He said it was much better. "Those of you who follow me on Twitter would know that I injured my thumb yesterday. The rest of you can go to hell. *pause* Not really."

During the break I got to watch Will and Victor fail to communite from opposite sides of the stage on three different communication devices while they tried to hook up part of Marty's kit. Turns out face to face is still the best method of conveying information.

The TMBG setlist: Meet the Elements - Memo to Human Resources - Istanbul - Dr. Worm - Clap Your Hands - Where Your Eyes Don't Go - We Live in a Dump - Birdhouse - No One Knows My Plan - Guitar - Ana Ng - Hearing Aid - Shooting Star - Drink - Mesopotamians - Upside Down Frown - Withered Hope - Dead - Damn Good Times. Encore - Alphabet of Nations - Turn Around

They started out the banter commenting on the weird levels of the venue. They couldn't quite figure out where the floor people were standing and said that if chicken fights broke out they wouldn't be able to tell what was going on. One of them said the place used to be an old movie theater. Huh.

Linnell asked if anyone had seen them on local Charlotte TV that morning. They had apparently been on a program with Rob Tanner. Linnell thought this name sounded made up. They decided it sounded more like the name of a detective in a dime store novel. "Rob Tanner: Weatherman Detective." Flans said he had picked up books in the Rob Tanner series in a truck stop. Linnell said that at that point he had been called Storm Tanner. They kept bring Rob Tanner up at various points later on. Nothing like a running gag :-)

Flans said the last time they were here there had been a woman experiencing her first Ecstacy trip. I guess she was driving Flans crazy and, as he put it, he was thinking "get out of my mind lady and she was like, what mind? Ahhh."

Several people in the audience were shouting requests and Flans said they didn't take requests. They made some kind of crack about knowing how to play those songs but they still weren't going to.

After Curt played his solos on Istanbul, Flans said they had him along to play that one song but they were going to do something no rock band had ever done before. They were going to have a trumpet player on more than one song!

There already seemed to be some technical issues at that point with either instruments or monitors, it was hard to tell. But it wasn't running smoothly at any point.

My sound experience during the whole show was pretty unbalanced. Pretty much all I could hear for large portions of the show was Flans' guitar because I was in front of his amp. It was so loud it washed out a lot of the other instruments. It was also disorienting to see Dan playing in front of me but only being able to hear Flans playing from the other side of the stage. All of the bass was also coming from the left which was an equally odd sensation. It wasn't how I normally would have chosen to listen to a show, but then, I did pick the spot.

Linnell did some fantastic riffing on the Future of Sound (ie. a combo of keyboard synth and Kaoss pad) at the end of The Guitar. I appreciated the irony of having The Guitar solo not played om the guitar.

And right about that point everything started going downhill. Flans didn't appear to be in a good mood to begin with and by the time four or five things had gone south his looked like his head might explode.

Dan had to leave the stage during one song to get his guitar fixed. Then Flans walked off stage during Ana Ng. He came back about halfway through the song but didn't play and looked angry. When it got to his "I don't want the world" line he just stood there staring with the guys staring at him and didn't say it so they proceeded on without it.

They had the puppet rig set-up back stage and a huge screen the size of the whole stage dropped down for the video. Curt was rummaging around trying to retrieve his Euphonium and music from underneath it. First they couldn't find the puppets, then they lost the video image just before starting Shooting Star. They decided to do the song anyway with the disco ball "stars" shining on the screen. It was funny watching Dan and Danny and Curt try to find a place to stand on stage that wasn't blocking the screen. Meanwhile, backstage Flans gave up on his puppet and was trying to get Linnell to do the same. They decided to bag the bit after that song even though the image came back on the screen just as they came back to the front of the stage. When Flans went back to close the puppet suitcase, Linnell puppet's head got stuck in the lid. Poor little guy!

Somewhere in all the puppet confusion, a bottle of water got knocked over on the horn platform amd Flans' box of guitar picks (which is shaped like a coffin) got knocked to the floor. Just not a good night.

Linnell asked Flans if he wanted to do Stalk of Wheat without the puppets but Flans said no, he wasn't in the mood. I think Drink! was a more appropriate song at that point anyway. Flans could have used one.

I was really stoked to finally hear Electric Car. The live arrangement sounds really cool. Flans told everyone that "this song is usually sung by my friend Robin Goldwasser but she is home taking care of her emotionally needy cats."

The funniest part of the rest of the show was Linnell turning to Flans at some point near the end and asking "How ya feelin' Flans?" It was like he was testing the waters to see if there were still sharks.

When they came back for the first encore they started Alphabet of Nations which was on the setlist as the second encore (we could see a setlist from where we were standing). I looked over at Will and he looked right at me and shrugged. He didn't know what was going on either.

The guys left after the first encore, then all of a sudden the house music came on and after a minute so did the lights and people started to leave. It was weird because it seemed like the band was coming back. This was confirmed when Danny came back out to talk to Will. He asked him what had happened and Will didn't know (it seemed like it had been a club employee responsible for early end). Danny told Will that the show wasn't supposed to be over, that they had just decided to flip the order of the encores. Oh, well. Two nights in a row Don't Let's Start managed to get skipped in an encore.

We got our setlist, then headed out. Even with all the issues, it was still a fun show. They did a great job of keeping it going when I am sure they just wanted to give up and go to bed. And I bet a ton of people in the audience didn't even notice most of the problems.

And they totally made up for this show with the Richmond show, which was one of the best shows EVER! Stay tuned for that one :-)

Edit: I forgot something! There was this great moment when Flans went chasing after a piece of confetti that was floating across the stage. Once he caught it, he pretended to read it like a fortune. Then he suggested they make fortune confetti, but then admitted that this would be confusing since some people would get 800 fortunes and they would all contradict each other. He did this great combo fortune that started with great fortune and ended with no hope. It was pretty funny. I can't believe I forgot.

I Was Once Part Of Your Orange

March 9, 2010 - The Orange Peel

Major adventure getting from Nashville to Asheville. There was a rockslide on the main road between Knoxville and Asheville and the road was closed at the North Carolina border. We had to turn around and attempt to figure out another route. My first try took us immediately into Deliverance country on a tiny road called Cripple Creek. Eventually on a dirt road with a cliff on one side and a ditch on the other the GPS gave up and instructed us to turn around. A sad old dog sitting on the porch of a shack with a rotting car in the yard watched and I attempted to turn without falling in the ditch. I think there may have been banjos playing in the background.

We ended up driving on a smaller road up through the Smokies on a frighteningly switchbacked "highway" where the posted 55 mile and hour speed limit probably results in numerous traffic deaths every year. Passing through Hot Springs, NC (not a spa town no matter how much they want it to be) we finally reached Asheville.

Tuesday morning we picked up our traveling companion at the airport in Charlotte and, not having anything better to do, ended up at The Orange Peel several hours early. We wandered around the area for a little bit (in the opposite direction than I intended to go because apparently I can't properly read a map) then settled in for a long wait at the club.

We did get to hear soundcheck pretty clearly through the walls again and got a nice taste of the Asheville venue song. They were obviously attempting to re-learn it. We had only just figured out the line about the French Broad river the day before (it always sounded like French Frog to me) after crossing over in several times on our trip through the mountains.

We also got to hear No One Knows My Plan (very exciting since we haven't heard that in about a year and a half) and an amusing mixture of Meet the Elements and Everything is Catching On Fire. Got to hear JoCo warm up Future Soon as well.

Finally got into the club and got a free The Else poster for no apparent reason, then picked a spot on the right side of the stage by the electric kit. The Orange Peel is pretty massive and built like a big barn with high ceilings and the most enormous circular fan I have ever seen. The blades were like helicopter propellers. The stage was also pretty massive, in stark constrast to the tiny one in Nashville.

JoCo did pretty much the same set except he subsituted Creepy Doll for Betty and Me. He warned us before hand that the song was scary and it we were sensitive we might want to cover our ears. I really enjoy his explainations of Mr. Fancy Pants, about how it doesn't make any sense and he isn't sure why there is a fancy pants contest and how it's actually quite sad because Mr. Fancy Pants looses and has nothing left. Then he proceeds to do a mash-up of Single Ladies and the Super Mario Brothers theme in the middle of the song which is pretty nerd-tastic.

The TMBG setlist was as follows: Meet the Elements - Memo to Human Resources - Istanbul - Dr. Worm - Clap Your Hands - Where Your Eyes Don't Go - Ana Ng - Hearing Aid - Shooting Star - Stalk of Wheat - We Live in a Dump - Birdhouse - No One Knows My Plan - WDTSS - WDTSRS - Mesopotamians - Damn Good Times - Dig My Grave - West Virginia - Unsupervised - Dead - They Might Be Giants. Encore - Asheville - Sexxy Encore 2 - Particle Man

The Johns had a running conversation about why they liked The Orange Peel so much, always coming back to the architecture. The decided later that it might also be the people. "And by the people we mean the architects. And the bartenders." Linnell also tried to chip in the guys selling t-shirts but Flans ignored him.

Flans also commented on their being fewer beards in the audience on this trip but that the beards present were bigger because the guys were committed to the beard. Linnell tried to suggest that perhaps the beards that were missing had been added to the present beards and started trying to figure out some sort of beard ratio but he let it go.

Following Clap Your Hands Linnell feared for the safety of his coffee cup resting on his keyboard. "I feel like we must have realized this before but is this a sprung floor? I almost just lost my coffee on that last song." People were stomping before the first encore as well and I could see the keyboard swaying on stage. Yikes!

The Avatars instructed us to tell the staff to lock the doors because we were all in sock puppet prison now. They also told the band they would be paid in Unobtanium. They wanted to thank their producer, Mr. James Cameron, who they said is a super nice guy. They also said the Giants are super nice guys,"just like James Cameron, meaning not at all."

Flans puppet thanked us for coming and admitted that their shows haven't been going very well and started to sob into the camera. He managed to crack up, not only the audience, but the rest of the band as well.

He also stuck his face in the camera lens and said this was the closest he had ever been to a camera and he didn't know that his eye looked like that. Linnell puppet told him his eye always looks like that, he just usually can't see it.

After they finished Stalk of Wheat, on which Curt plays Euphonium, Flans puppet said, "Euphonium, a word you won't hear again in The Orange Peel any time soon."

After they put the puppets down, Linnell ran around the drum to prop up the Meg Ryan cut-out and Flans pointed the camera at it and yelled, "Meg Ryan? What?" Unfortunately, by that point the video screens had been turned off so no one knew what he was talking about. Linnell had to explain that we couldn't see it but Meg Ryan had just been here. It was a strange joke when you could see her and without the video it didn't even make sense.

They played the Everybody Conga song before No One Knows My Plan but did not sing the words and did not actually ask to start a conga line, so no one did. This was kind of sad but also avoided the problem of losing stage spots while conga-ing.

Flans introduced Marty as he moved the the electronic kit for WDTSS and then Linnell randomly said, "Regicide."
Flans:"John, have you been reading your word a day calendar?"
Linnell:"Erm, yes.."
Flans:"What does that even mean?"
Linnell:"Regicide. Death of king of drums."
Audience Member:"We love you Marty!"
Linnell:"That won't help him when he's dead!"

Flans went on to lead a demo of the drum sounds for WDTSS. He said the kick drum sound had been recorded by John Kerry before his unsuccessful presidential campaign.

The WDTSS lines:

Everything on the sun is a gas: iron, copper, aluminum and Meg Ryan.

The sun is 93 million miles away. Fucking 93 mile..million miles away.

The heat and light of the sun are cause by the nuclear reactions of the following 1960s children's drink flavors: rootin' tootin' raspberry, goofy grape, lefty lemon and jolly olly orange.

Linnell also returned to the earlier conversation later, just saying "regicide" in a very dramatic tone.

Flans explained the origin of WDTSRS. He said they have been performing the song for over 20 years, just waiting for them to be ready to release a Science album to put it on and then they gave it to their science consultant. "I really like that sun song, that's my favorite one you wrote.( We didn't tell him it was a cover.) But the title is wrong. And we were like, FFUUCCKK." So they wrote an answer song.

Linnell said the Mesopotamians was about digging up an ancient rock band that had been buried for thousands of years. Then Flans said, "we'll come back and dig you up later" which made them both laugh. Flans explained was a reference to a 70s commercial that probably only he got. Linnell said he got it and Flans said he made the joke just for him. There was also a lady to my right who obviously got it because she was laughing pretty hard too.

After the Mesopotamians, Linnell called Flans over and asked him about rearranging the setlist saying that he needed a break and something about being weak. So they did Damn Good Times and stuck Dig My Grave in, which wasn't on the setlist. Then preceeded through the rest of the setlist as it had been written until the encore.

They came back with Asheville and Linnell explained that it had been written when they were here in 2004 and there had been a big Flood. I was particularly impressed that he played both accordion and keyboard on the song.

They skipped Don't Let's Start which was on the setlist and went right into S-E-X-X-Y. Flans left somewhat abrupting as they were jamming at the end of the song but continued to play off stage and the rest of the guys gradually stopped and left one by one until Dan was the only one still playing with Flans until he was off stage too.

It was a long time before the second encore and they just did a quick shout-out band intro and went right into Particle Man and that was it. Turns out when we got the setlist later, they had been planning to do Electric Car (which I really want to hear)N Subliminal and The Famous Polka. Don't know why they changed there mind but it looked like Flans might have gotten ticked off about something. Or maybe one of them wasn't feeling well. Who knows.

There was more people grabbing the setlist off the keyboard again and this time they took it a step further and also took Linnell's coffee cup. Come on, people. It's rude. Just ask.

I would have liked to hear that encore as planned but otherwise an excellent endeavor. And now we conga our way to Charlotte.

Fine Family Dinning

March 7, 2010 - Exit/In - Nashville, TN

(I apologize for the mixed tenses in this entry. I wrote some of it in the club between acts and some after the fact so my present and past have gotten confused.)

Greetings from Nashville! We have driven for two days to get here, past thousands of cows, several sheep, a donkey, 13 road-side crosses, and the titular poorly spelled restaurant advertisement. Arrived in the Country Music capital in late afternoon. Realized that, oddly, Nashville is in a different time zone and we had traveled back an hour.

Headed to the club just before 6pm and discovered a quite sizeable crowd already in line. Turns out most of them thought doors were at 7 (they were at 8). Waited in boredom and increasing cold. Heard soundcheck through the walls of the club: Hearing Aid, Someone Keeps Moving My Chair and part of WDTSS. Saw Curt Ramm waling out of the club. Jonathan Coulton (seriously, the best opener TMBG could have provided) poked his head out of a side door at one point to let some friends in and inform the crowd by said door of the late door time. These same people only recognized him after about the third time he stuck his head out, having apparently missed all announcements that he was opening (where have they been?).

Managed to get the slightly obstructed but direct Linnell eye-contact view in front of the keyboard. Struggling to get Oscar updates while waiting for the show to start. I am a HUGE Oscar fan and this is the first Oscar ceremony I have missed watching in probably 15 years. Only for TMBG. Thus far from what I have gathered, all of my predictions have been correct, except maybe one. (Post script: I got 17 out of 24 categories right.)

In a bizarre move Hanson has been added into the pre-show mix. Also several songs about food: one about potato chips and one about beans.

JoCo was AWESOME! I can't imagine a more grin-inducing combination for me than a show that contains both him and TMBG and I get four! He did Future Soon, Shop Vac, Betty and Me, Skullcrusher Mountain, Mr. Fancypants and Re: Your Brains. Our crowd made excellent zombies. He didn't do too much banter but responded to a lot of things yelled at him by the crowd. The best of which was the guy who yelled "show me your Hoover" after Shop Vac. Jonathan said he didn't know the Hoover of whom you speak but if you had said "show me your Dyson" he would know what you were talking about. He also did some explaination of Mr. Fancypants, saying that even though it wasn't one of his best songs it didn't matter because we weren't going to be listening to the song because we were going to be too distracted by his strange musical instrument. I am not going to try to explain this thing. If you haven't seen it, go look up the song on YouTube. He started the drum beat on it, then did this "where's that coming from, there is no drummer on stage" thing. At this point someone in the crowd yelled that there was and pointed at Marty's drums. Jonathan had to point out that there was no drummer and that "this is what we in the rock business call a drum set."

I admit that I have not been doing as much of my post-opener crew watching between the sets because I have been blogging but I did watch Iggy scale a light fixture and pull a piece of confetti out of a light box. I have also been amused by the proximity of the men's room to the backstage door. Men needing to use the facilities were fighting with crew for space.

Setlist:Subliminal - Meet James Ensor - Damn Good Times - Meet the Elements - Fingertips - Memo to Human Resources - Mesopotamians - Road Movie to Berlin - They Might Be Giants - Sapphire Bullets - Women and Men - Hot Cha - Whistling in the Dark - Letterbox - Minimum Wage - Hearing Aid - What Is a Shooting Star - Stalk of Wheat - Someone Keeps Moving My Chair - We Want a Rock - Twisting - Particle Man - Your Racist Friend - Dead - Istanbul - Lucky Ball and Chair - Birdhouse - Theme from Flood. Encore - Clap Your Hands - Withered Hope - Polk. Encore 2 - Guitar

When TMBG opened with Subliminal I was ecstatic. Subliminal is one of my favorite songs and possibley my very favorite to hear live. I heard it a couple of times in the spring, then all fall I kept reading about it getting played in other places but they never played it at the shows I attended. Finally!

Flans made some cracks about all the fans standing on the stairs being a fire hazard and how they'd gone 10 years without an industrial accident (but they didn't want to talk about what happened 10 years ago.) He referred to them as the Fire Marshall dancers and the Fire Marshallettes. He also commented on the people in the balconey looking sleepy.

He explained the format, that they would be playing eight songs before Flood so there were seven left. He asked Linnell later how many songs they had left and told him they were numbered on the setlist but Linnell couldn't read the numbers. He kept doing the countdown but he had been wrong about the number they started with so by the time they got to Flood they had only played seven songs.

Linnell introduced Meet the Elements as being about the periodic table and that lots of people leave during this song and don't come back for the good ones.

My view of the stage was severely limited by the keyboard. I could see Linnell (obviously) and I could sometimes see Dan off on the left. Flans moved in and out of view but except for a view occations I could mostly just see his head and feet. I could see Danny's legs behind the keyboard (which was good since he was wearing the red pants) but could only occationally see his head. And Marty was just completely invisible.

A few songs in Danny took off his long sleeved shirt and was wearing a black t-shirt that said Jingle Punks underneath. Dan said something to him about this and Danny put a large piece of tape over the name. I have no idea why. Eventually, he put the long sleeves on again. Odd but funny.

Since it was Academy Awards night Flans made several jokes about the awards. He introduced one song as the winner of Best Costume Design and one Best Special Effects.
Before starting Flood, Flans explained that they had tried multiple ways of playing it and the one that seemed to work best for them was backward. This also made me happy as I had seen that they had already played it backward a few times and I was looking forward to the variety. He also said later that if we knew the order of Flood backward we were better off than the band. He and Linnell also had an amusing discussion about doing the whole album in Ubbi Dubbi and proceeded to recite a few lines. Linnell thought it could be done but sadly they did not try it.

Curt Ramm joined them on stage for Road Movie. I like the trend of bringing a horn player on the road. It makes some of the songs sound so much fuller. Flans shouted "Rock me" just before the bridge, which they definitely did :-)

After one of the big confetti launches Flans said they should have warned us that there would be confetti. "Confetti and strobe lights."
Linnell: "And a tidal wave of blood."
Flans: "You ruined the surprise."
Linnell: "It's going to wash us all out into the street."
Flans: "That's my favorite part of the show."

Some other amusing interludes...

Flans asked everyone in general who had won awards at the Oscars and got a lot of unintelligible response. He said that their Coraline song was eligible but it hadn't been nominated.
Flans: "Fuck everyone. Twitter this: Fuck everyone. That's 40 characters. I can even double up. F-F-U-U. Then my one Twitter follower can read it."
Linnell: "It's me. Fuck me? Fuck you!"
Flans: "This isn't a kid's show is it?"

The puppets did a lot of amusing facial expressions. They said they wanted to play their 2012 Avatar release but they didn't want to go to sock puppet prison. "First they take your ears, then they take your dignity." They also told the rest of the band that they were fired and that the Johns had made the puppets tell them because they were too lazy. And they sang Stalk of Wheat which was a first for me (haven't had one of those in a while).

At the end of the puppet set the camera panned in on a picture of Meg Ryan stuck in front of the camera and they thanked her for coming to their show. After the puppets left Linnell said she had been at the show in Atlanta too and she must be a real fan.

Flans asked the club to turn on the ceiling fans at one point and some suggested they might just be for show. Flans said that would be cruel. When they did turn them on showers on confetti fell from them.

During the band intros in the encore I finally caught a glimpse of Marty under the keyboard when Linnell stepped aside. Linnell started to step back in front of the keyboard while I was trying to take a picture of Marty and noticed and stepped back out of the way. Thanks John! Then he bumped into Flans when he did step back.

The Guitar finale featured an awesome trumpet solo and to me excitement the people of Nashville all recognized the appropriate time to wave in the song. Yay!

After the show there was a very uncool girl who reached over everyone to rip Linnell's setlist off the keyboard, then came back to get a piece that had torn off. Not cool, chick, not cool. We managed to get a setlist by being patient (and because Victor recognizes my boyfriend). It has this great note between two songs: JL look at JF. I wonder why...

Excellent start to the trip. They managed to make Flood fresh and exciting and I totally won't mind hearing it again later this week. Next stop The Orange Peel!

Happy New Year! (Very Late)

So I totally blew it when it came to doing a write-up of the New Year's Eve shows. I started it over a month ago and never finished and of course now I have forgotten most of the good bits I wanted to write about. So here you have what I wrote in January plus some random memories. I invite those of you who read this blog and were there (and lets face it, I think three of my four readers were there) to add your own favorite moments in the comments.



We ended up leaving for Northampton a lot later than I originally intended. And once we got there it took us forever to find parking. The city was having a big New Year's celebration all day so there were a lot of people competing for parking spaces. We got to the theater just a little after the doors opened for the early family show and met up with our friends. I passed the entire Linnell clan walking into a side door of the theater just as we approached. I managed to contain myself.

The early show was general admission so we picked seats on the right side of the theater about four rows back. We intended to stay in our seats for the show and let the kids and parents fill the dance floor but after Clap Your Hands the guy in front of us remained standing and stood his son up on the chair in front of him so we couldn't see at all. So we ended up going down to the dance floor so that we could see.

The set list was very similar to the other family shows we attended this fall.

Setlist: I Never Go To Work - Clap Your Hands - Get Up And Go - Where Do They Make Balloons? - Pirate Girls Nine - WDTSS? - Bed Bed Bed - Famous Polka - Roy G. Biv - Alphabet Lost and Found - Older - Seven - Fibber Island - Zilch - Particle Man - In the Middle - What Is a Shooting Star - Alphabet of Nations - My Brother The Ape - Doctor Worm Encore - Meet The Elements - Istanbul

It was a great show but not much new. Even a lot of the banter was similar.

Some of the stand out moments:

Linnell messed up the words to Particle Man, starting the wrong verse in the middle. We were speculating that it might indicate the end of the world but so far so good.

The nuclear reactions in Particle Man were caused by Goofy Grape, Rootin' Tootin' Raspberry, Lefty Lemon and another Fancy Face pack flavor that I can't recall. After the song the Johns were remembering the Red Sox baseball player Lefty Lemon and teasing Marty about his love of the Yankees. This prompted Marty to end Alphabet Lost and Found with "I think there's a box of Yankees in the back."

There was some incredible clothing sported by the men on stage. Flans was wearing shiny silver sneakers. Stan had on black velvet shoes with moons and stars on them and Dan Levine was wearing a shirt almost as loud as his trombone.

We had to wait outside the theater between the afternoon and evening shows for quite a while and it was really quite cold. My feet were pretty much frozen. But we were treated to a lovely fireworks display by the town of Northampton. We watched numerous members of the band and their families come and go out of the theater. By far the most exciting was when I saw Flans, Marty and John Hodgman (who was appearing as a special guest) walking toward us and realized that they also had Jonathan Coulton with them. I was so excited by this that I completely missed the fact that Flans said "Happy New Year" to our group as he passed. But Hodgman waved at us which made it all ok. I spent much of the rest of the wait groundlessly speculating what Jonathan Coulton was doing there and if he would be appearing in the show. It turned out that he had just given Hodgman a ride and was there to watch but it was still awesome.

Once back inside the theater we scored prime stage side space (taking up most of it since our group had doubled in size while waiting in line). Iggy came out on stage and told us it was going to be an awesome show. He also heard someone commenting on the plastic birds on the lights that I have mentioned before and explained that they were Rock Doves. I found this very funny and appreciated the three dimensional pun.

The setlist for the evening show: Doctor Worm - Withered Hope - Birdhouse - Guitar - Dig My Grave - Meet the Elements - Take Out the Trash - WDTSS - Meet James Ensor - Los Angeles - Anaheim - Albany - Dallas - Vancouver - Pittsburgh - Glasgow - Charlottesville - Asbury Park - Brooklyn - Museum of Idiots - Clap Your Hands - Whistling in the Dark - Seven - Istanbul - New York City - Mesopotamians - They Might Be Giants  Encore - Shoehorn with Teeth - In the Middle - Damn Good Times  Encore 2 - Alphabet of Nations - Mr. Me

I was anxious to see what role Hodgman would be playing in the show but it turned out to be a reprisal of his Venue Songs performance. After a warm-up set he came out and stood behind the camera that the Avatars use and they projected his face onto the big screen. In his role as the Deranged Millionaire he provided narration for the whole Venue Songs set. He had written some new material to suit the evening which he was reading off his iPhone. I've heard them do this set twice live now plus on a live show I downloaded and the narration has never been exactly the same anytime which keeps in fun. I do have to admit that I was a little disappointed they didn't do anything new with Hodgman like they had done on Conan but I was happy enough to have him there. The best part was watching him use his iPhone as a lighter (though he didn't seem to have the lighter app) during Brooklyn.

Stan did an absolutely ridiculous sax solo in one of the early songs. I think it was either Withered Hope or The Guitar unless I am completely misremembering and it was at the afternoon show. Flans kept yelling at him something like "more notes, less feeling." It took Stan a little while to get what Flans was saying and once he did Flans kept making him keep going and going. It was pretty amazing and funny. Poor Stan probably blew all his best stuff at the start of the show.

Marty did a great demo of the sound each of the drums in his electronic kit plays during WDTSS. Flans made jokes. I don't remember them but they were funny.

Linnell accidently spit while singing at one point. It probably hit some girl in the audience who then fainted.

Linnell made a fantastic joke before the Mesopotamians that hopefully someone else remembers because it was so good and I've forgotten it (are we sensing the theme here?).

They played the most in-tune version of Dallas I've ever heard. They can never seem to start that song in tune with one another and this time it came out perfect. I think they may have surprised even themselves.

I still love the puppets. I don't care how many times Flans-puppet does the "stick an eyeball in the camera lens" thing. It is still funny.

The second bell on Marty's bells that he uses for Shoehorn did not work. It was sad. But also funny.

And that is pretty much all I remember. If you were there and you remember more, please, please comment and remind me.

We got a setlist and one of Dan Miller's guitar picks after the show and then went for late night ice cream with all of our friends, old and new. We even went out and watched Northampton's strange New Year's ball raising complete with overly-startling cannon fire. It was a pretty spectacular day. I may have been just a tiny bit disappointed that they didn't play anything I haven't heard before but even so. Pretty spectacular. I actually found pieces of confetti still stuck to me while I was in the shower the next morning. It made me very happy.

There are just a few pictures up on Flickr. I didn't take as many and many did not come out great. But there are pictures of the fabulous shoes.

They Might Be Giants of Science

Check out this great interview from Time.com. There is footage from the AMNH shows on October 4th and the boyfriend and I are visible in the shot where Flans is talking about how fans at a rock show pay rapt attention to the band. Cool!

Merry Christmas to Me (And You Too)!

So I got myself a little Christmas present, something I've been wanting for a while. I'm quite happy with the way it turned out.

I fell in love with this logo the minute I saw it on the temporary tmbg.com site back in the spring. I was actually almost late to work that day because I was trying desperately to figure out how to snag the image off the site and print it out. I was very pleased to see it turn up on all the crew badges on the fall tour.

I think the tattoo artist nearly had a heart attack when I showed him what I wanted. All those straight lines. But he did a really nice job with it and it only took about an hour and a half. Of course I am already plotting my next design.

I am extremely excited about the New Year's Eve shows on Thursday. I can't wait. A lot of my enjoyment of Christmas was lost thanks to work craziness, a really crappy schedule and a lot of ridiculous driving to get both my boyfriend in I home for Christmas day (one car - opposite directions). And the last few years my New Year's celebrations have been nonexistent, so I am really glad to be able to spend the day with some awesome TMBG peeps. We shall bond while waiting outside in the cold.

See ya'll on Thursday!

Bookstore Rock

December 2, 2009 - Border's Bookstore - Braintree, MA

Almost five years later, we returned to the site of my very first TMBG show for another in-store performance and signing. The last time I was at this Border's I was tagging along with friends. I was completely unfamiliar with the band, Istanbul was the only song they played that I recognized and I didn't know who the Johns were so I didn't get anything signed. Boy, how things have changed.

I have a pretty vivid imagination and I tend to spend too much time dreaming up in my head how things are going to go. Unfortunately, I think my experience at this show kind of suffered from that and I ended up being a little disappointed. Not by any fault of the band. The show was great. The Johns and Marty were really nice. I got my book signed. We got our picture taken. By all rights I should be ecstatic. Any disappointment on my part is with myself. I really wanted to come up with something meaningful to say to them. About what their music means to me. About what a huge part of my life the band has become. About how happy they make me. And I didn't say anything, except to spell my name for Flans and ask for a picture. I was totally intimidated by them and none of the words in my head seemed good enough. I also had something I really wanted to ask them but I lost my nerve.  And so I've been moping and mentally kicking myself instead of relishing what an awesome night it was. Maybe recaping it will help me with that.

We got to Borders at about 4:30 for the 6:00 show. We drove passed Flans on the sidewalk outside talking on his cell. There was a little stage already set up near the back of the store with a mini drum kit for Marty and Linnell's accordion on it. There was only one family and one lone guy waiting by the stage so we went to hang out with our friends who were already camped out in the cafe. We got to watch Linnell unsuccessfully attempt to enter the building via an emergency exit in the cafe.

About 20 minutes or so before the show we went over to the stage area. Most of the crowd was sitting on the floor so we stood in the back, figuring we'd have a better view over everyone's heads. Victor was puttering around the stage plugging things in and testing equipment. He seemed to be the only crew member they brought with them. The Borders staff had all the people sitting on the floor scoot forward so more people could sit down but we stayed standing. Right on time, I saw a Border's employee asking a man with a kid on his shoulders to step to the side and Flans, Linnell and Marty made their way onto the stage.

From my past experience at an in-store and what I have heard from others, I expected Flans to ask the adults without kids who were sitting by the stage to move further back so the kids could be at the front. Instead he said this was going to be a short show and asked everyone to stand up and hoist their kids on their shoulders if they wanted. So much for the better view. I briefly couldn't see anyone on stage at all, then when I moved a little I could at least see Linnell. Most of my view of the show was Linnell and the rear end of a little girl sitting on her dad's shoulders directly in my line of sight to Flans. I actually forgot Marty was there for a little while because I couldn't see him until Linnell stepped back to get his coffee.

Flans said this was their first attempt at a mixed age show and they did play a mix of kid and rock songs.
They started with Alphabet of Nations. The intro sounded so funny without the reverb and effects on the mics. The sound quality from the mics was terrible for the first song but it got better. I wasn't totally paying attention for part of the song because I was trying to find a place where I could see but I did enjoy hearing it on accordion rather than keyboard.

Flans talked about their new book and complimented Border's on their nice display. Someone next to the display stand held up a copy. Flans said they were going to play the song twice and that their performance would improve by the second playing. They joked that they were going to play it in different musical styles throughout the show. They also commented on the name of the book not being anywhere in the song and said that for the longest time their publisher thought the title was Go, Kids Go. They also talked about Bed, Bed, Bed and Flans said that the DVD from that book was apparently the most stolen item from some bookstore they had played in because you could easily take the DVD without anyone noticing. This led into a discussion of how the contents of the DVD would be what you were stealing if you downloaded the music online so it was really the same thing and eventually got into comments about stealing the new book. Flans did ask everyone to please pay for their copy though, I am sure, much to the Border's staff's relief. When they finally started the song, Flans used a very silly, extra deep voice for the beginning. I was pleased that they had learned the entire song by now since the last mention of it I had heard was that had played a 45 second version because they hadn't learned the rest. The first playing was good but the second was WAY better.

Next they played The Mesopotamians which, we discovered is not entirely child appropriate. The word "damn" is in the lyrics which I had never really thought about before. Nobody around us seemed to mind but I'm sure somewhere in the crowd there was at least one annoyed parent. It was odd enough hearing the song with accordion rather than keyboard but what I found even odder was the lack of Dan Miller's vocals. Don't get me wrong, it still sounded great and Flans really held up his end covering for both guitar parts but I hadn't realized before how much Dan fills out the background vocals. Apparently Flans was missing him as well, because after the song he commented that he didn't know when to start singing because he always looked at Dan on stage and just started singing whenever he did. Heehee. Doesn't he know you're not supposed to admit that sort of thing? :-)

Flans then started his pre-Pirate Girls counting lesson. He did the whole bit, asking everyone if they could count to 10 then saying that this was easier because they only had to count to nine. The first time he tried to get the audience to do it with him almost no one did. The second time he got everyone but most of the people around us counted all the way to ten. He had us do it one more time to improve our speed before introducing the song. "This song is about three things. It's about pirates. Arrrrrrrrrrrr. It's about girls. Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. And it's about the number nine. Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr." I think we, as an audience, did pretty well with our audience participation. And I didn't hear anyone say ten during the song.

"This next song is about a worm who thinks he's a doctor." Doctor Worm was the first They Might Be Giants song I really retained and liked and I first heard it at this very same Borders. It was like a little mini-anniversary performance for me. And a pretty rockin' one at that!

Clap Your Hands was pretty amusing in a bookstore. You usually think of bookstores as being rather quiet places and here are a hundred or so people clapping and stomping and jumping up and down. There was probably at least one person in the store who just came in to read and was shocked and disturbed to walk into a rock concert. The best part for me was that Flans mixed up which bookstore he was in and yelled "Barnes & Noble, clap your hands" in the middle of the song. Bet the Border's staff loved that.

Linnell did a fantastic intro to Istanbul on the accordion. I wish he would do that at one of the rock shows. I don't feel like I get to appreciate his accordion skills enough and the little bit of improv was the perfect outlet. Flans mixed in a little guitar strumming too. It was a little more obvious what they were starting to play than it usually is but I think plenty of folks in the crowd were still surprised. For me, it was like a little window in time showing what a show must have been like in their early days (substituting Marty for the drum machine of course). If anyone ever invents a time machine you will find me back in some little club at a TMBG show circa 1985.

Flans made some stage announcements about the signing before the last song. He said they would sign until the very last person got through the line so if anyone didn't want to wait or really needed to take a little one to the bathroom they could come back in a little bit and they would still be there. He even said we could go get dinner and come back and they would still be there. (I don't think that was quite true since they got through the line relatively fast and bolted immediately. I wonder if anyone came back after they were gone and was sad?) He also asked that any of the fans with 25 items to sign please stand at the end of the line so that people who have only limited interest in the band can get a book signed and drive away first. Those weren't the exact words which is too bad because his phrasing was funnier. There was also a little kid holding up a sign while Flans was talking that Flans read to the crowd. It said "You are my second favorite band" on one side and "The Beatles are my favorite" on the other. Flans told the kid The Beatles were his favorite too.

As they were leading into the second round of Get Up and Go, Linnell suggested that they play it in the style of The Pixies with some parts really loud and some parts really soft. Flans asked which parts were going to be loud and which were going to be soft and Linnell said something like "I don't know, we'll see." Flans had this momentary look of consternation on his face then asked if they were starting loud or soft. They decided on loud and that they would follow Marty for when to switch. And they started LOUD. With Flans doing to silly voice again. Then when Linnell came in on the verse he was very quiet and smirking while he was singing. And they kept switching back and forth throughout the song. Linnell kept making himself almost laugh trying to be quiet. It was awesome! I can't imagine I will ever hear a better performance of the song.

There was kind of a confusing crush towards the line after the song. We managed to get somewhere in the middle. It didn't take more than fifteen minutes to get to the front of the line. They were booking it through the signing with Flans urging people forward and keeping the line moving. Both of our friends were ahead of us and posed for pictures with Flans and Linnell. Then it was our turn. My boyfriend had brought his Bed, Bed, Bed and a copy of Kids Go! and his Hello Recording club version of the '85 demo tape. Flans asked his name first, then asked him how old he was so he could fill in the "age" line in the "this book belongs to" page of Bed. Flans signed his name with his age as well, then passed it down to Linnell. He did the other book, then took Kids Go. He asked my name and if I used the traditional spelling. I spelled it for him since I wasn't sure what he considered to be the traditional spelling. Then he took the demo tape with a little "woah" and made a comment about how old it was. I asked if we could have a picture. We got to go behind the table and stand between the Johns. Linnell asked for a count off so we'd know when the picture was taken. 1-2-3. Click. And that was pretty much that. I collected my book from Marty at the end of the table. Smiled at him while trying to shove everything back into my bag. Not even sure I said thank you. I hope I did. We hung around to watch the rest of the signing while I tried to get up the nerve to go back and ask them my question at the end. But I chickened out and they were too fast getting up and fleeing after the last person in line was through anyway.

So, excellent little show. I have a lovely signed book and a cute picture that may or may not end up being my Christmas card this year. And, with a little time, I will hopefully stop thinking about all the things I didn't say. Hopefully, it wont be my last opportunity to meet them.

Must admit too that I am pretty bummed I decided not to go to the NYC in-store. I could have. I considered it. I wanted to. But my boyfriend couldn't go and I didn't want to go alone. And of course they played an awesome setlist. Just one more thing I can kick myself over.

Next shows are New Years Eve. They'll be like my reward for surviving another holiday season in retail. Then we will see what 2010 holds.

Pictures are up on Flickr as usual.