And time is still marching on...
I went to see They Might Be Giants in London last Saturday! If you're wondering why I reserved all of my squee about it until now, I didn't - I just didn't have the time to sit down and consolidate it, because I was in the middle of zipping all over the country to attend university open days. Next week I'll be off again to summer school, after which I will probably have forgotten most everything, so I might as well pull a post together in the intervening time.
The trip down to London was a bit boring, involving a drive down to Luton of slightly more than two hours followed by a train ride. I was with Lauren, because taking the mother to a rock show didn't seem like a prudent idea - she insisted on coming anyway, but spent pretty much the entire day sleeping at a table while we were walking around.
On arriving at the venue, we had a couple of hours left before the doors opened. Outside, on the banks of the Thames, there was a stand promoting a BBC TV programme called "Bang Goes the Theory", which I hadn't heard of but Lauren apparently had. It was quite busy, but we didn't bother looking. Inside the Southbank Centre, there were lots of science exhibits sponsored by the Royal Society and various universities, which was where we killed the most time, because nearly everything there was sooooo cool. There were pterodactyl heads! And pterodactyl bones! And also lots of things that weren't to do with pterodactyls, such as wall-climbing robots, comparisons between Leeuwenhoek's microscope and a modern one done on a water flea, slices of human brains and everything! Unfortunately, I didn't think to take pictures...
We found a place to sit down, got drinks, discovered what an Eton mess was (it's a pudding with cream, meringue, raspberries and strawberries; before buying one, I hypothesised that it was made of public schoolboys, but this appeared to be incorrect) and then it was pretty much time to go in for the kid show.
The auditorium in the Royal Festival Hall is a really, really posh place, cavernous and supremely polished. Despite having booked pretty early, we had ended up with obstructed-view seats because not being on the front row would have been out of the question (I'm short) - we were sitting on the rightmost edge of the row, so if we looked straight ahead all we could see were speakers. Looking to the left, the view of most of the stage wasn't terrible, but we could barely see the other side of it, and whenever someone stood on the raised platform at the back they disappeared completely.
TMBG were slightly late arriving, maybe five minutes or so - I didn't see any of the guys hanging around before then, but since the door backstage was on the far side of the stage, it's possible we just missed them. But then they were there! And it was awesome.
Oh, before I talk about the show, I will talk about the enormous floating penguin.
It appeared a good twenty minutes before the band did. Actually, at first, I thought it was a whale. Mike Doughty, who opened for the evening show, called it a dolphin. Apparently some people thought it was a manatee. Clearly, if you were to reimagine the Rorschach test as a big shiny helium balloon with a thin remote-controlled robotic frame inside to make the flippers move, this would be it. It left the auditorium shortly before the band came on, to a round of raucous applause, but it came back later. Additionally, it was joined by a giant jellyfish near the end of the kid show and before the adult show.
Anyway! TMBG. (From here on in, all quotes are heavily paraphrased. My memory's not great at the best of times, and this was nearly a week ago...)
(I should point out that, compared to some of the photos I'm not uploading, these aren't especially blurry. That's part of the reason I didn't bother for the adult show. A posh phone, a posh phone, my kingdom for a posh phone.)
The set for the kid show didn't contain anything unexpected - I guess they were playing it safe, or possibly they figured that since they hadn't been in England for so long, most of the set would be new to us anyway. They were all on top form, though! Particularly Flans, who did most of the talking (as ever) and was distinctly unimpressed by our comparative lack of energy. Before Pirate Girls Nine, a little scene took place.
"Everyone raise your hands if you can count to nine!" *mass hand-raising* "Okay, this is your soundcheck."
"One two three four five six seven eight nine."
"...Well, you all raised your hands, but... Okay, last chance to get it right without the music."
"One two three four five six seven eight nine!"
"...How about we split you guys up to create a fake kind of rivalry? Let's hear it from the people in the balcony."
"One! Two! Three! Four! Five! Six! Seven! Eight! Nine!"
"See, the people on the balcony are better than you guys on the floor, and we can't even see them! And I can make direct eye contact with all of you down here." *prolonged glaring at everyone on the front row* "Your turn."
"ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR! FIVE! SIX! SEVEN! EIGHT! NINE!"
"Yeah, this is what we Americans do! Create a kind of false system of value, and things will change."
Also, later on, during the band intros, after failing to make the audience pick up the chant "The bass, the bass, the bass is Danny Weinkauf": "Have you guys never been to a rock show? Oh - maybe you haven't."
What can I say? British. And not drunk, which was key.
This is not to say things went perfectly on the band's part. Most noticeably, at periodic intervals, Flans' microphone kept making tweeting noises. He first blamed it on the giant penguin floating serenely above the stage, thinking it was interfering with the wireless somehow ("Can we retire the silver object for the next song? Just one song. It's 90 minutes long."), but when it happened again later ("Is it my mic? ...Are you blaming me?") he was forced to step away from it with his hands in the air, sidle over to Dan's mic and continue introducing the song ("This next song has four themes: professionalism, pirates, girls and the number nine...").
Also, after Electric Car had been introduced, Dan Miller started playing before anybody else did, leading to some Flans jokes - "Y'know, kids, jetlag is a funny thing..." Then he flubbed one of his own entries by thinking the chorus with altered lyrics was earlier than it actually is, but recovered admirably.
Does it sound like I'm nitpicking? I hope I'm not nitpicking! It was fantastic! Everyone was adorable! Lauren said I'd probably done more exercise in those 90 minutes than I had all year!
The confetti cannons went off twice, IIRC - once for Bed Bed Bed, once for Older (though that was less of a bang and more of a steady stream).
Here are some assorted events I vaguely recall from the kid show, because by now my thoughts have become completely disjointed.
JF: "You might know about our new album. It's called Here Comes Science. This next song is a song off that record - it's an educational song. Kids, parents, I know what you're thinking - the doors are locked, it's too late, no one can escape."
JL: "Well, it's bedtime here on stage. We're professionals, so we would never fall asleep while performing. Not yet, anyway. Maybe when we're sixty."
JF: "That's the newest member of They Might Be Giants, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Silver the Penguin, our assistant manager. And our technician Victor, operating the cannon - he's wishing his aim was better."
At one point, the penguin floated gently over the stage, and the band stood stock still to watch it pass sloooowly overhead.
JF: "Stand up for They Might Be Giants' national anthem! And by national, I mean worldwide! You up there in the fancy seats, shake your jewellery!"
JF: "No accordions were harmed in the making of this show."
JL: "Yet."
JL (during Doctor Worm): "When I give the signal, my friend Rabbi Flansburgh will play the solo!"
JF: "You may be watching our drummer, Mr. Marty Beller, and thinking - how can he rock so hard? Well, the truth is, Marty has a secret past. Like many of the people in here. Like many of the children in here. Marty used to be in the boy band 99 Degrees - you might remember the band 98 Degrees? This was just a little more intense. ...For the duration of this song, we are shedding the name They Might Be Giants and becoming Marty Beller's Vanity Project, copyright Mr. Marty Beller of Marty Beller Industries, LLC. Just for the duration of this song."
During High Five, the small red-shirted child sat in the seats next to us (who started doing a robot dance later on in the show) kept trying to approach Marty as he darted around the stage, and missed him every time. Near the end of the song, Marty actually knelt down and waited for the kid to toddle up and high-five him. It was the only point in the show when he wasn't moving.
JF: "Thanks for so many of you coming out. We're super glad you're all here today."
JL: "You have no idea how lonely we'd be if you weren't. 'Hey, guys, bad news...'"
(Both Johns during the pirate version of Why Does the Sun Shine) "The sun is so hot, it's like a thumb in your eye. It's so large, a million thumbs could fit inside. If you had a million thumbs in your eye, you'd need an eyepatch. Three eyepatches. A million eyepatches!"
The Avatars of They were present! (For those who aren't TMBG nerds, what they do is set up a camcorder on stage and put on a short sockpuppet show, which is projected onto a bigger screen behind the camera so everyone can see.) They did pretty much the same thing in both shows, right down to the song choice, thanking TMBG for opening for them and discussing James Cameron. Blue Avatar had clearly just learned the meanings of the expressions "for the win" and "fail"; in the kid show, he asked the audience if any of them knew the meanings. He also pretended to be stalking the members of the audience ("My left eye is watching you... and my right eye is watching you.") and gave the camera close-ups of his coffee cup. Both Avatars seemed to enjoy basking in the crazy disco ball light while singing.
After the Avatars left the stage for the first time, Flans asked if anyone in the audience was having a birthday today. A guy called Nick near the back said he was 34, so they sang Happy Birthday to him, after one false start because Linnell wasn't sure what key to play it in.
Particle Man was really entertaining, despite being, um, Particle Man. Linnell and his accordion were all over the stage. The interlude was I Love to Sing, where Danny and Flans joined him at the keyboard and generated strange noises while he sang. They looked like they were thoroughly enjoying themselves, but of course you can't make that out in the photo either.
Stan Harrison's clarinet led into Istanbul, and then a new challenger appeared! It was the jellyfish. Also then there was an encore.
What was I doing during the show? I was trying to multitask and not doing very well. I took notes, but they were pretty bad notes, which is why I don't remember more - and I took photos, but, well, there they are.
According to Lauren, due to our moderately conspicuous position on the front row, we were given strange looks by Dan, Danny, Flans and Linnell at various points in the kid show and the start of the adult show due to my scribbling. If true, I think I might have momentarily made eye contact with Linnell at one point - he was stood right in front of us for all of Alphabet of Nations - but the others totally escaped me. I am so disappointed that I can't verify that.
We didn't stick around after the encore, which I'm also disappointed about because apparently they were selling T-shirts, but oh well. We then spent an afternoon in London doing fuck-all (we don't live there, so we had no idea where the decent shops were) and returned in time for the drunk adult show.
Mike Doughty was better than I expected; I don't know his music at all, but he had an acoustic guitar and came across as a pleasant guy (at one point commenting that he'd thought we would be drunker). He also played a bit longer than I'd anticipated - we walked in at about quarter to eight, but it was nine by the time TMBG emerged from their burrows with their two clarinets.
And then... I remember even less specific stuff, because like I said, I didn't bother with notes for this one. The set consisted mainly of fan favourites. It started off in a fairly genteel fashion, but the crowd really started to wake up when they played Birdhouse - then Flans called everyone to the front of the stage for Clap Your Hands, and the entire auditorium came alive. For me, the feeling was like the first TMBG gig I went to, last year, only moreso. There's a sort of magic in a crowd, underneath the smell of sweat and cheap beer, when it's not just you singing along to your favourite song but everyone else as well.
Speaking of everyone else, there were apparently a number of famous people in attendance, most of whom I was totally unaware of. At one point, Flans was chatting to Mark Ronson, who was on the first row - it was probably funny, but I didn't catch any of it apart from a cryptic "I don't know, he's your friend". He also informed everyone that Axl Rose was in the audience, although I couldn't tell how serious he was being. Lauren spotted Jonathan Ross in one of the boxes, and someone on TMBW claims that Tim Minchin was there, who I'm very sad to have missed.
Oh, did someone call for more half-remembered quotes and paraphrases?
John and John mentioned being on Jeopardy the other day, and faked indignance at only being in the final question "when Whitney Houston is like question 1".
JF (after announcing that Why Does the Sun Shine would be performed in a pirate style, and being greeted with a chorus of people shouting "arrr"): "Either these are sycophants, or we have a number of actual pirates in the audience."
Also in introducing WDTSS, someone talked about doing a sweary version of the song to contrast with the kid show version, but in the end they used the same pirate theme. The band took audience votes on who Linnell should impersonate in the spoken sections (he first suggested a theme of "guess the impression", but that didn't go anywhere), with a choice between Walt Brennan, Katharine Hepburn and James Mason; James Mason won, but Flans was at pains to point out that they would've done James Mason regardless ("this isn't a democracy"). The nuclear reactions in the Sun were then between "Walt Brennan, Katharine Hepburn... and me!"
JF: "Hey John, I just remembered about a lady I met... must've been at one of the festival shows. Came up to me and said 'I love They Might Be Giants, and I love the song 500 Miles', and I was like - you don't love anything else?"
Again, there was confetti during the usual part of Older. Again, it was more like an endless stream. Again, it was amazing.
The Avatars, like I said, did mostly a repeat of their kid show performance. One thing that was new turned out to be Blue Avatar's impromptu "composition", where he shouted "FOR THE WIN" and Green Avatar immediately followed it up with "FAIL!" They're funnier in person, honest.
After the third encore (three! encores!!), we couldn't lurk around the stage for a setlist since we needed to catch the 11:36 train out of London and it was already 11. Still... they played my favourite song. It's not even an uncommon live song - they've played it at shows more or less constantly since 1988 - but that's the memory I plan to keep. Come back soon, guys.
So yeah. Sorry about the rubbishness of the recap, but at least it's out of the way now.
Anyway, wasn't the Doctor Who Christmas special teaser the most awesome and uplifting one since ever? I liked it a lot, and especially for [spoiler], who you would probably find in the dictionary if you looked up "romantic". I want one. ♥ ♥ ♥
The trip down to London was a bit boring, involving a drive down to Luton of slightly more than two hours followed by a train ride. I was with Lauren, because taking the mother to a rock show didn't seem like a prudent idea - she insisted on coming anyway, but spent pretty much the entire day sleeping at a table while we were walking around.
On arriving at the venue, we had a couple of hours left before the doors opened. Outside, on the banks of the Thames, there was a stand promoting a BBC TV programme called "Bang Goes the Theory", which I hadn't heard of but Lauren apparently had. It was quite busy, but we didn't bother looking. Inside the Southbank Centre, there were lots of science exhibits sponsored by the Royal Society and various universities, which was where we killed the most time, because nearly everything there was sooooo cool. There were pterodactyl heads! And pterodactyl bones! And also lots of things that weren't to do with pterodactyls, such as wall-climbing robots, comparisons between Leeuwenhoek's microscope and a modern one done on a water flea, slices of human brains and everything! Unfortunately, I didn't think to take pictures...
We found a place to sit down, got drinks, discovered what an Eton mess was (it's a pudding with cream, meringue, raspberries and strawberries; before buying one, I hypothesised that it was made of public schoolboys, but this appeared to be incorrect) and then it was pretty much time to go in for the kid show.
The auditorium in the Royal Festival Hall is a really, really posh place, cavernous and supremely polished. Despite having booked pretty early, we had ended up with obstructed-view seats because not being on the front row would have been out of the question (I'm short) - we were sitting on the rightmost edge of the row, so if we looked straight ahead all we could see were speakers. Looking to the left, the view of most of the stage wasn't terrible, but we could barely see the other side of it, and whenever someone stood on the raised platform at the back they disappeared completely.
TMBG were slightly late arriving, maybe five minutes or so - I didn't see any of the guys hanging around before then, but since the door backstage was on the far side of the stage, it's possible we just missed them. But then they were there! And it was awesome.
Oh, before I talk about the show, I will talk about the enormous floating penguin.
It appeared a good twenty minutes before the band did. Actually, at first, I thought it was a whale. Mike Doughty, who opened for the evening show, called it a dolphin. Apparently some people thought it was a manatee. Clearly, if you were to reimagine the Rorschach test as a big shiny helium balloon with a thin remote-controlled robotic frame inside to make the flippers move, this would be it. It left the auditorium shortly before the band came on, to a round of raucous applause, but it came back later. Additionally, it was joined by a giant jellyfish near the end of the kid show and before the adult show.
Anyway! TMBG. (From here on in, all quotes are heavily paraphrased. My memory's not great at the best of times, and this was nearly a week ago...)
(I should point out that, compared to some of the photos I'm not uploading, these aren't especially blurry. That's part of the reason I didn't bother for the adult show. A posh phone, a posh phone, my kingdom for a posh phone.)
The set for the kid show didn't contain anything unexpected - I guess they were playing it safe, or possibly they figured that since they hadn't been in England for so long, most of the set would be new to us anyway. They were all on top form, though! Particularly Flans, who did most of the talking (as ever) and was distinctly unimpressed by our comparative lack of energy. Before Pirate Girls Nine, a little scene took place.
"Everyone raise your hands if you can count to nine!" *mass hand-raising* "Okay, this is your soundcheck."
"One two three four five six seven eight nine."
"...Well, you all raised your hands, but... Okay, last chance to get it right without the music."
"One two three four five six seven eight nine!"
"...How about we split you guys up to create a fake kind of rivalry? Let's hear it from the people in the balcony."
"One! Two! Three! Four! Five! Six! Seven! Eight! Nine!"
"See, the people on the balcony are better than you guys on the floor, and we can't even see them! And I can make direct eye contact with all of you down here." *prolonged glaring at everyone on the front row* "Your turn."
"ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR! FIVE! SIX! SEVEN! EIGHT! NINE!"
"Yeah, this is what we Americans do! Create a kind of false system of value, and things will change."
Also, later on, during the band intros, after failing to make the audience pick up the chant "The bass, the bass, the bass is Danny Weinkauf": "Have you guys never been to a rock show? Oh - maybe you haven't."
What can I say? British. And not drunk, which was key.
This is not to say things went perfectly on the band's part. Most noticeably, at periodic intervals, Flans' microphone kept making tweeting noises. He first blamed it on the giant penguin floating serenely above the stage, thinking it was interfering with the wireless somehow ("Can we retire the silver object for the next song? Just one song. It's 90 minutes long."), but when it happened again later ("Is it my mic? ...Are you blaming me?") he was forced to step away from it with his hands in the air, sidle over to Dan's mic and continue introducing the song ("This next song has four themes: professionalism, pirates, girls and the number nine...").
Also, after Electric Car had been introduced, Dan Miller started playing before anybody else did, leading to some Flans jokes - "Y'know, kids, jetlag is a funny thing..." Then he flubbed one of his own entries by thinking the chorus with altered lyrics was earlier than it actually is, but recovered admirably.
Does it sound like I'm nitpicking? I hope I'm not nitpicking! It was fantastic! Everyone was adorable! Lauren said I'd probably done more exercise in those 90 minutes than I had all year!
The confetti cannons went off twice, IIRC - once for Bed Bed Bed, once for Older (though that was less of a bang and more of a steady stream).
Here are some assorted events I vaguely recall from the kid show, because by now my thoughts have become completely disjointed.
JF: "You might know about our new album. It's called Here Comes Science. This next song is a song off that record - it's an educational song. Kids, parents, I know what you're thinking - the doors are locked, it's too late, no one can escape."
JL: "Well, it's bedtime here on stage. We're professionals, so we would never fall asleep while performing. Not yet, anyway. Maybe when we're sixty."
JF: "That's the newest member of They Might Be Giants, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Silver the Penguin, our assistant manager. And our technician Victor, operating the cannon - he's wishing his aim was better."
At one point, the penguin floated gently over the stage, and the band stood stock still to watch it pass sloooowly overhead.
JF: "Stand up for They Might Be Giants' national anthem! And by national, I mean worldwide! You up there in the fancy seats, shake your jewellery!"
JF: "No accordions were harmed in the making of this show."
JL: "Yet."
JL (during Doctor Worm): "When I give the signal, my friend Rabbi Flansburgh will play the solo!"
JF: "You may be watching our drummer, Mr. Marty Beller, and thinking - how can he rock so hard? Well, the truth is, Marty has a secret past. Like many of the people in here. Like many of the children in here. Marty used to be in the boy band 99 Degrees - you might remember the band 98 Degrees? This was just a little more intense. ...For the duration of this song, we are shedding the name They Might Be Giants and becoming Marty Beller's Vanity Project, copyright Mr. Marty Beller of Marty Beller Industries, LLC. Just for the duration of this song."
During High Five, the small red-shirted child sat in the seats next to us (who started doing a robot dance later on in the show) kept trying to approach Marty as he darted around the stage, and missed him every time. Near the end of the song, Marty actually knelt down and waited for the kid to toddle up and high-five him. It was the only point in the show when he wasn't moving.
JF: "Thanks for so many of you coming out. We're super glad you're all here today."
JL: "You have no idea how lonely we'd be if you weren't. 'Hey, guys, bad news...'"
(Both Johns during the pirate version of Why Does the Sun Shine) "The sun is so hot, it's like a thumb in your eye. It's so large, a million thumbs could fit inside. If you had a million thumbs in your eye, you'd need an eyepatch. Three eyepatches. A million eyepatches!"
The Avatars of They were present! (For those who aren't TMBG nerds, what they do is set up a camcorder on stage and put on a short sockpuppet show, which is projected onto a bigger screen behind the camera so everyone can see.) They did pretty much the same thing in both shows, right down to the song choice, thanking TMBG for opening for them and discussing James Cameron. Blue Avatar had clearly just learned the meanings of the expressions "for the win" and "fail"; in the kid show, he asked the audience if any of them knew the meanings. He also pretended to be stalking the members of the audience ("My left eye is watching you... and my right eye is watching you.") and gave the camera close-ups of his coffee cup. Both Avatars seemed to enjoy basking in the crazy disco ball light while singing.
After the Avatars left the stage for the first time, Flans asked if anyone in the audience was having a birthday today. A guy called Nick near the back said he was 34, so they sang Happy Birthday to him, after one false start because Linnell wasn't sure what key to play it in.
Particle Man was really entertaining, despite being, um, Particle Man. Linnell and his accordion were all over the stage. The interlude was I Love to Sing, where Danny and Flans joined him at the keyboard and generated strange noises while he sang. They looked like they were thoroughly enjoying themselves, but of course you can't make that out in the photo either.
Stan Harrison's clarinet led into Istanbul, and then a new challenger appeared! It was the jellyfish. Also then there was an encore.
What was I doing during the show? I was trying to multitask and not doing very well. I took notes, but they were pretty bad notes, which is why I don't remember more - and I took photos, but, well, there they are.
According to Lauren, due to our moderately conspicuous position on the front row, we were given strange looks by Dan, Danny, Flans and Linnell at various points in the kid show and the start of the adult show due to my scribbling. If true, I think I might have momentarily made eye contact with Linnell at one point - he was stood right in front of us for all of Alphabet of Nations - but the others totally escaped me. I am so disappointed that I can't verify that.
We didn't stick around after the encore, which I'm also disappointed about because apparently they were selling T-shirts, but oh well. We then spent an afternoon in London doing fuck-all (we don't live there, so we had no idea where the decent shops were) and returned in time for the drunk adult show.
Mike Doughty was better than I expected; I don't know his music at all, but he had an acoustic guitar and came across as a pleasant guy (at one point commenting that he'd thought we would be drunker). He also played a bit longer than I'd anticipated - we walked in at about quarter to eight, but it was nine by the time TMBG emerged from their burrows with their two clarinets.
And then... I remember even less specific stuff, because like I said, I didn't bother with notes for this one. The set consisted mainly of fan favourites. It started off in a fairly genteel fashion, but the crowd really started to wake up when they played Birdhouse - then Flans called everyone to the front of the stage for Clap Your Hands, and the entire auditorium came alive. For me, the feeling was like the first TMBG gig I went to, last year, only moreso. There's a sort of magic in a crowd, underneath the smell of sweat and cheap beer, when it's not just you singing along to your favourite song but everyone else as well.
Speaking of everyone else, there were apparently a number of famous people in attendance, most of whom I was totally unaware of. At one point, Flans was chatting to Mark Ronson, who was on the first row - it was probably funny, but I didn't catch any of it apart from a cryptic "I don't know, he's your friend". He also informed everyone that Axl Rose was in the audience, although I couldn't tell how serious he was being. Lauren spotted Jonathan Ross in one of the boxes, and someone on TMBW claims that Tim Minchin was there, who I'm very sad to have missed.
Oh, did someone call for more half-remembered quotes and paraphrases?
John and John mentioned being on Jeopardy the other day, and faked indignance at only being in the final question "when Whitney Houston is like question 1".
JF (after announcing that Why Does the Sun Shine would be performed in a pirate style, and being greeted with a chorus of people shouting "arrr"): "Either these are sycophants, or we have a number of actual pirates in the audience."
Also in introducing WDTSS, someone talked about doing a sweary version of the song to contrast with the kid show version, but in the end they used the same pirate theme. The band took audience votes on who Linnell should impersonate in the spoken sections (he first suggested a theme of "guess the impression", but that didn't go anywhere), with a choice between Walt Brennan, Katharine Hepburn and James Mason; James Mason won, but Flans was at pains to point out that they would've done James Mason regardless ("this isn't a democracy"). The nuclear reactions in the Sun were then between "Walt Brennan, Katharine Hepburn... and me!"
JF: "Hey John, I just remembered about a lady I met... must've been at one of the festival shows. Came up to me and said 'I love They Might Be Giants, and I love the song 500 Miles', and I was like - you don't love anything else?"
Again, there was confetti during the usual part of Older. Again, it was more like an endless stream. Again, it was amazing.
The Avatars, like I said, did mostly a repeat of their kid show performance. One thing that was new turned out to be Blue Avatar's impromptu "composition", where he shouted "FOR THE WIN" and Green Avatar immediately followed it up with "FAIL!" They're funnier in person, honest.
After the third encore (three! encores!!), we couldn't lurk around the stage for a setlist since we needed to catch the 11:36 train out of London and it was already 11. Still... they played my favourite song. It's not even an uncommon live song - they've played it at shows more or less constantly since 1988 - but that's the memory I plan to keep. Come back soon, guys.
So yeah. Sorry about the rubbishness of the recap, but at least it's out of the way now.
Anyway, wasn't the Doctor Who Christmas special teaser the most awesome and uplifting one since ever? I liked it a lot, and especially for [spoiler], who you would probably find in the dictionary if you looked up "romantic". I want one. ♥ ♥ ♥