My They Might be Giants Concert Experience….4-17-98

Well, my evening started off well, I went to the concert with my good friend, Katie, and we went out to dinner first at this neat little sandwich place by my house, the Lost Dog café at about five o’clock. After we ate, we drove over to the metro stop to go to the Catholic University stop! We were initially planning to drive there, but I had driven out there the day before to find out where it actually was…and decided there was no way on earth I wanted to drive through Washington, D.C.

After an uneventful metro trip, we got off and walked the half mile to the place where the concert was going to be held, the DuFour Center. This is a sports center, which I thought was an interesting place to have a They Might be Giants concert, but it was pretty good.

When we got to the DuFour center at about 6:45 or so, there was a big line waiting to go in. We ended up talking to the girl next to us in line who actually went to Catholic U, and she had decided to go to the concert with a friend who hadn’t arrived yet. She told us that she had Flood, and wondered if they had another album. Katie and I kindly informed her that, indeed, there were five other albums! Which she should run out and buy that minute. Well, not that minute because we were standing in line for the concert. But soon. :-) Then it started to pour rain, so the entire line moved under a little awning to keep dry, but the people who were at the very end of the line couldn’t all get under the awning, so they got soaked :-)

Finally, they let us in at about 7:15 (tickets said doors opened at 7:00, but oh well) and I bought my very first They Might be Giants t-shirt, it’s grey with giant mantises on the front scaring a city, and the back has the mantises by a telephone with the dial-a-song number on it! I also saw that the opening band was Lincoln! No Double Dong which I had heard such bitter complaints about.

We walked into the place where the concert was to be held, which was half of a basketball arena with surprisingly good acoustics, and took a place in the center, about 20 people back or so. And waited. And waited. And waited. They played really bad music in the background…dance-type. The gym was almost full by the time They came onstage, which was neat. Most of the people there were college age, I only saw one girl who was definitely in middle school, I saw a group of kids who were most likely in middle school, but possibly early high school. All in all, the crowd was mostly college age. It was also a lot calmer atmosphere of any concert I’ve ever been to. I saw one guy with an “Alien Abduction Support Group” t-shirt on, and an old guy who just stood there the entire concert, and didn’t move w/the music or anything. He might have been someone’s father, but he looked really out of place.

Lincoln came on. Their 1st song was great! The girl we had stood in line with was standing near us (her friend still hadn’t arrived, but she had found other people she knew, who were also standing near us), liked it a lot, too. After the 1st song, though, they played slower songs which kind of got repetitive and had strange lyrics, all were mostly repetitive rhymes. One had the lyrics “Ain’t got no moneeeee, ain’t got no honeeeee.” But their last song was really good. I got their CD on the way out, hopefully it will be good.

When Lincoln finished at about 8:20 or so (had played for 30 or 40 minutes) we waited. And waited. And they played more of that bad dance music. And we waited. And we waited. And we waited. Every time one of the dance songs would end, the audience started to cheer, hoping that TMBG would soon be coming out. But then another song started, and everyone groaned.

FINALLY, at about 9:10, They came out!! Everyone cheered! Flansy was wearing a plaid short sleeved shirt, and tan pants and he had a mustache!, and Linnell was wearing a red t-shirt. Hal Cragin was on bass, and Dan Hickey was on drums. Here’s the songs they played, and my comments on the more memorable ones. They put the spotlight much more on Flans the entire night, and I had a better view of him most of the time, and he talked a lot more than Linnell, so I mention Flans a lot more. But Linnell was in a good mood, though, and he talked some too, which is good, cause I’d heard he hadn’t been doing that lately.

Here’s their first three songs:

• New York City

• James K. Polk (complete w/confetti canon) Flans mentioned the canon beforehand, and he described it as a “fuzzy” or “Hairy” ball. Then some guy (who I later found out to be Jake of a.m.tmbg) held up a sign that said “Johns 3:16” and Flans said “That’s the length of our next song!” :-)

• Sleeping in the Flowers

• She’s Actual Size- Flans was pretty interesting…he held up the microphone, stand attached…and also hid behind some boxes that were on stage

• Particle Man –the crowd started a round of “Pass the Dude” on this one and the song after it (I forget exactly which one it was) but after the 2 songs they stopped. Neither John said anything about it.

• Ana Ng- “Pass the Dude” on this one, too, though…about 2 songs after they stopped from Particle man.

• Rhythm Section Want Ad

• Lie Still Little Bottle- complete with big stick

• Why Does the Sun Shine? (fast, rocking version)

• Dr. Worm – Which Flans said was going to be on Severe Tire Damage, coming out this summer

• They Got Lost – Also will be on new album

• Battle for the Planet of the Apes- Flans said this would be on Severe Tire Damage, and said there were six songs in the series, but only five movies, so one song wasn’t the name of a movie. I don’t think he knew which one  When Hal and Dan played, the audience had to raise one fist and shout “PEOPLE!” When the Johns played, everyone had to raise the other arm in a fist and shout “APES!” Great fun.

• No One Knows My plan- Right before this one, Flans said “It’s the time of the show where everyone gets a little looser! So grab the waist of the person standing in front of you, and start a conga line!” That was great. I ended up right next to the speaker with a great view…but it was right next to the speaker, so I had to move cause it was really loud.

• Birdhouse in Your Soul

• The Guitar

• Spy

• S-E-X-X-Y

  There came a portion of the show where They said that they like to play it totally in the dark and just relax, and they played

• Pet Name

• Exquisite Dead Guy- still in the dark, but complete with puppets (they had spotlights on the puppets)…great. :-)

• Dig my grave

  Went dark and I saw that somebody put a glockenspiel on stage, which I thought was a little funny, cause They had already played Why Does The Sun Shine? But then…

• Shoehorn with teeth-which was very cool…the Johns came back onstage with the drummer, Dan. They made this big to-do about Dan, and wished him luck playing the glockenspiel. Dan looked very concentrated on what he was doing. They started the song, Dan stood there. “He want’s a shoehorn…the kind with teeth (duh nuh duh nuh ) “ BING (Dan hitting the glockenspiel) :-)and that’s all he played. He played it about three times, and the audience cheered every time.

  And the last 2 songs were...

• Istanbul

• How Can I sing Like a Girl?-when They sang "I want to raise my freak flag", Jake raised that "Johns 3:16" sign again.

I heard Flans talking with some people getting his autograph. One person asked why they didn’t use their horns on the tours. Flans said it was because they felt that the shows got too centered on the horns, and when they had the horn players at the shows and touring with them, the horn players wanted to play more than 4 or 5 songs. Another guy asked if S-E-X-X-Y was about genetics (as per one interpretation on tmbg.org, I’m assuming) and Flans said “No” in that “what are you talking about? Of course not” tone. :-)

On the metro home, we talked to someone who had a copy of the setlist and had it autographed. Next time, I’m going to get one, and frame it.

Wow, that was long. One thing I really loved, though, was that you could overhear people actually discussing their music! I mean there was more than just a few people that knew stuff about Them! It was great!

*Just in* The official Setlist! (from a post to the newsgroup by Ian Greenberg) As it appeared on the pieces of paper the Johns looked on!

Tom- Play walk on #1
Linnel signals end to tom
NYC
Polk <------James K. Polk
Sleeping <---(in the flowers)
Til <--- Till my head falls off
Lost
Actual/Sun
Battle <---- Planet of the apes song
SEXXY
Dr. Worm
Bird
Latin/No one
Particle
Spy/Lie/All the g's <--To all the Girls I've Loved Before. very cool with Linnell's synthesized voice
Older/Ana
Pet/Exq
Vocorder Jam Goodbye
Guitar
*ENCORE*
Shoe
Twist
Dig
*ENCORE*
Istanbul
girl
They stuck in Rhythm Section Want ad somewhere in the set

Think that was long enough? Well you're wrong! Okay, last update to this page...you can read my friend's take on the concert at NiamhIam

Quote(s) of the Week!
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"I hit the pedal/like a trucker/flip the finger/So long, Sucker!"~Lincoln
"This next song is exactly 3:16 long"-John Flansburgh

Link of the Week!!
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TDK's TMBG Page! It's a great place to find pics and sound files on TMBG!! And Lincoln! And Mono Puff! Go right now!

Pics of the Week!
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The pictures I took!

Linnell and Flansburgh in concert! :-)