Quotes of the Evening:
Jonathan Coulton wearing a zendrum: "You guys are such DORKS. Only my fans would applaud me putting this on."
Jonathan Coulton, using an echo effect in Creepy Doll. *dramatic pause, whisper* "Do you seeeee what I did theeere?"
Jonathan Coulton: "Some of these zombies have perfect pitch."
TMBG: "There's confetti in my coffee! And I'm still drinking it! I shouldn't have taken the methadone and the LSD at the same time..."
TMBG: "That was pretty creative, coughing in the middle of the song."
"I think I inhaled some confetti. That stuff's going to be up there for days."
"There was actually coughing in the original recording of this song, and we thought we'd perform it as faithfully as we could."
The concert was AWE-SOME. Coulton got us to do the zombie hoard in Re: Your Brains and did some favourites and some surprising songs (ShopVac might be one of my favourite songs ever, but I never expected him to perform it). I enjoyed his rendition of Fancy Pants on the zendrum. I love how he hit one of the buttons and "Should Have Put a Ring On It" started blasting out, and then he looked around in embarrassment. And then proceeded to mix it into "If you liked it then you should have put fancy pants."
Yes.
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I'm only sad that he was around for so short a time. During the break, I was able to look around at the audience. Yup, totally what I expected. They could be divided into 3 groups.
1) Glasses, unruly unkempt hair/bears, and nerdy t-shirts with converse shoes optional (I fell into this category)
2) The All in Blacks (mostly high school kids. I would have fallen into this category two years ago)
3) Th-the random engineers? That look like they just popped in from work, all belted khakis and button down plaid shirts. One guy had an Aperture work shirt, and some guy in the back showed up in his lab coat.
I LOVE this. I love that there are fifty-something engineers rocking out to the same music as elementary school kids. (They were at the concert too, but they were up in the balcony seats with their parents, and the older people were up front by the stage (meee!)
My mom told me, "I know what happens at concerts. If any of this moshing or crowd surfing business happens, you stay away." And I'm like, o_O What kind of people do you think are GOING to this concert? The most exuberant thing we were doing was jumping up and down. A lot of us were standing there with our arms folded, kind of swaying and mouthing the words. Oh yeah. We're pretty dangerous.
I mean, okay, so there was alcohol, but from where I could see there weren't too many people drinking. There was some guy in front of me with a rum t-shirt and a baseball cap who had been drinking. He was kind of trying to dance and shouting things like, "I feel like they think they're saying clever things." Uh, okay. He kind of stuck out a bit, and he and his sweater and pearl girlfriend (I swear, I see this type everywhere, and I don't know how it works) kept leaning backwards right into my personal bubble. I was...a bit uncomfortable. But hey, it takes all kinds, and if they're into TMBG and JoCo, who am I to judge?
Except there was a guy behind me too, who was standing like, 2 inches from me. And he was just standing there (he was a Type 1) with his hands by his sides, not moving too much. Some people in front of us moved away, so I scooted up a little bit to give him space. Look from my peripheral, he's STILL THERE about 2 inches from me. I didn't even see him move. >_>
I met some people. Another guy I know from UVa showed up, and I met one of my good friends from Summer Governor's School from 4 years ago. Apparently they both live in Richmond. Who knew?
TMBG did their entire Flood album (in reverse!) as well as doing some stuff from Here Comes Science, They Might Be Giants, and Lincoln. (The Mesopotamians! Yes! I LOVE that song!!) Their trumpeter was fabulous (if a little loud. *wince* Trumpets are pretty loud by themselves) and they had an electric drum set, and a sock puppet show (The Avatars!), and bursts of confetti and unexpected moments, and Flansy was freakin' awesome roaming around the stage with his telecaster, and Linnell's flat nasal monotone was absolutely perfect! SUCH a good concert.
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The only thing I wanted was perhaps a poster for my friend who couldn't come, but I saved him some confetti. And I stayed in the same hotel as They Might Be Giants (right up the street from the theatre) so I got to see the lackeys ferrying their instruments in and out. I'm pretty sure they were leaving, since they were playing in Baltimore the next day. Then New Jersey and then I believe London. I was able to catch JoCo performing his last opener for TMBG, which was extraordinarily lucky. He's heading up the east coast back home to New York, but he's opening for Paul and Storm.