Older Than I Once Was
This week I went out three nights in a row, and I am reluctantly forced to conclude that I'm not in my twenties any more.
Sunday was They Might Be Giants at the Roundhouse ("where rock dreams come true and trains come to turn around", as one of the Johns said). This was the 30th anniversary tour for the Flood album (Birdhouse In Your Soul; Istanbul (Not Constantinople)), which came out in...1990. What with lockdown and further postponement (my original ticket was for 2023), they pointed out that the tour had taken longer to produce than the album itself.
As well as everything from Flood, they squeezed in plenty more tracks, including one of the first TMBG songs I heard and still my favourite:
Towards the end, we were asked to get our phones out, turn our backs to the stage and take a selfie, so the band could photobomb the entire audience.
On Monday I saw Operation Mincemeat: The Musical at the Fortune Theatre. As the name suggests, it's a musical based on MI5's plan to obfuscate the Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943 by planting fake documents on a corpse, and it's just as strange and frantic as that sounds.
A cast of five constantly swapping roles, costumes and genders (I was very smug when I correctly identified Ian Fleming from the bow tie alone), with some terrific song and dance numbers. Very funny and occasionally, unexpectedly, moving.
Tuesday saw me closer to home (getting in at 22:30 felt like an early night at this point) for The Simon & Garfunkel Story in Bromley.
I was one of the younger members of the audience, and I didn't learn anything about either Simon or Garfunkel that I didn't know already, but the vocals were so perfect that I got chills, and it was a shock when the performers switched from their singing voices to their regular English accents to narrate the next part of the joint biography.
Their costumes, changing with the passing years from suits with skinny ties to polo necks, were spot on, as were the mannerisms: Alex Bradshaw as Art looking cool with his thumbs in his pockets, while Joe Sterling as Paul bounced with nervous energy.
They did a meet and greet in the foyer afterwards, and I thanked them for including the extra verse of The Boxer that only shows up on live albums:
Now the years are rolling by me, they are rocking evenly
I am older than I once was, younger than I'll be, that's not unusual.
No, it isn't strange, after changes upon changes we are more or less the same
After changes we are more or less the same.
Lie la lie...
Sunday was They Might Be Giants at the Roundhouse ("where rock dreams come true and trains come to turn around", as one of the Johns said). This was the 30th anniversary tour for the Flood album (Birdhouse In Your Soul; Istanbul (Not Constantinople)), which came out in...1990. What with lockdown and further postponement (my original ticket was for 2023), they pointed out that the tour had taken longer to produce than the album itself.
As well as everything from Flood, they squeezed in plenty more tracks, including one of the first TMBG songs I heard and still my favourite:
Click to viewTowards the end, we were asked to get our phones out, turn our backs to the stage and take a selfie, so the band could photobomb the entire audience.
On Monday I saw Operation Mincemeat: The Musical at the Fortune Theatre. As the name suggests, it's a musical based on MI5's plan to obfuscate the Allied invasion of Sicily in 1943 by planting fake documents on a corpse, and it's just as strange and frantic as that sounds.
A cast of five constantly swapping roles, costumes and genders (I was very smug when I correctly identified Ian Fleming from the bow tie alone), with some terrific song and dance numbers. Very funny and occasionally, unexpectedly, moving.
Tuesday saw me closer to home (getting in at 22:30 felt like an early night at this point) for The Simon & Garfunkel Story in Bromley.
I was one of the younger members of the audience, and I didn't learn anything about either Simon or Garfunkel that I didn't know already, but the vocals were so perfect that I got chills, and it was a shock when the performers switched from their singing voices to their regular English accents to narrate the next part of the joint biography.
Their costumes, changing with the passing years from suits with skinny ties to polo necks, were spot on, as were the mannerisms: Alex Bradshaw as Art looking cool with his thumbs in his pockets, while Joe Sterling as Paul bounced with nervous energy.
They did a meet and greet in the foyer afterwards, and I thanked them for including the extra verse of The Boxer that only shows up on live albums:
Now the years are rolling by me, they are rocking evenly
I am older than I once was, younger than I'll be, that's not unusual.
No, it isn't strange, after changes upon changes we are more or less the same
After changes we are more or less the same.
Lie la lie...