Yes I was a snowball in hell
I said this on Twitter, but: I'm really quite impressed by the way that They Might Be Giants can have me looking forward to seeing a show of theirs despite having seen them forty times before last night. Maybe it was because last time I saw them was July, and it was a good but shorter outdoor set, and the time before that was October 2010 in a longer but seated set, and I used to be able to see them several times a year. In fact, I did have pangs of nostalgia and the irrational urge to show-travel when I saw their last few dates before finishing the current tour in NYC were in Northampton and Providence. I used to see them in Northampton and Providence! Tear.
But a two-hour show at Terminal 5 with Marisa, Amanda, Harald, Anne S and her friend KC, turns out to be a pretty good substitute. Lincoln actually edged out Join Us for the most-represented record, with the former's six to the new one's five, but there were tons of songs from all eras of their now basically thirty-year career (!). John and John were in fine variety-show-style form, bringing back "Battle for the Planet of the Apes," doing a weird but funny extended bit with puppet avatars of themselves shilling for a made-up drug called Pandor, and marveling at the venue where they'd never played (Flansburgh, after assuming that it used to be where someone made boats: "I'd like to meet the Russian man who built it"). OK, there was one bit in the first encore about finding audience members and giving them nicknames, that played like a clunky Conan O'Brien bit to me, but generally, really funny and high-energy, and also horn-augmented by Mark Pender (from the Conan show, actually).
Songs songs songs, lots of songs:
Birdhouse in Your Soul
Cowtown
Mr. Me
Clap Your Hands
Can't Keep Johnny Down
Damn Good Times
Snowball in Hell
Particle Man
Ana Ng
Careful What You Pack
Battle for the Planet of the Apes
Paranoid/Pandor Jingle
Spoiler Alert
The Mesopotamians
Lie Still, Little Bottle
Cloisonne
Don't Let's Start
We Live in a Dump
Where Your Eyes Don't Go
New York City
Spy
Dr. Evil
Dr. Worm
---
Celebration
When Will You Die
---
How Can I Sing Like a Girl?
Istanbul
Total nerd notes:
*I remember when "How Can I Sing Like a Girl?" was being used as an encore song and it was kind of a bummer choice! But this version was just John and John and accordian, and it was really nice. Also, the song has grown on me over the years.
*The heavy-noise intro to "Ana Ng" they're using lately is pretty awesome. I am pretty much forever doing a ghostly pantomime of the "Ana Ng" video dance when they play this song even if I am not technically or fully or visibly doing it.
*While I would expect "The Mesopotamians" to survive into the tour rotation well after The Else came out, I would not have expected the same for "Careful What You Pack," which I love, so: good choice, fellas.
*I don't usually buy tourdate shirts and lord knows I don't need a new TMBG shirt but: this exists (updated with the 2012 tour dates), so, yeah, I got that, obviously.
Total nerd complaints that shouldn't count as complaints:
*They were just one Apollo 18 song and one Mink Car song away from playing something from all of their rock records! I guess that doesn't sound that close, but considering they had songs from John Henry and Factory Showroom, I figured we'd at least get "The Guitar" or "Fingertips" to inch ever closer. Perusing other recent setlists, they've repeatedly come tantalizingly close (in Providence they were only short a Mink Car track and in Northampton they were only missing something from John Henry, at least if you count Older as a Mink Car representation which I guess it basically is. Obviously a good mixed-up set should be prioritize over some kind of technical completeness, but look, after forty shows, I'm trying to maintain some kind of pointless goals in seeing them over and over. Plus all shows are better with "The Guitar."
*As a longtime TMBG setlist nerd, I personally would prefer that they not open with "Birdhouse" and, especally, not encore-close with "Istanbul." But they do change their sets a lot so it's not like this always happens.
*My two favorite Join Us songs, "Canajoharie" and "Old Pine Box," were MIA. But I guess there's something for show forty-two.
But a two-hour show at Terminal 5 with Marisa, Amanda, Harald, Anne S and her friend KC, turns out to be a pretty good substitute. Lincoln actually edged out Join Us for the most-represented record, with the former's six to the new one's five, but there were tons of songs from all eras of their now basically thirty-year career (!). John and John were in fine variety-show-style form, bringing back "Battle for the Planet of the Apes," doing a weird but funny extended bit with puppet avatars of themselves shilling for a made-up drug called Pandor, and marveling at the venue where they'd never played (Flansburgh, after assuming that it used to be where someone made boats: "I'd like to meet the Russian man who built it"). OK, there was one bit in the first encore about finding audience members and giving them nicknames, that played like a clunky Conan O'Brien bit to me, but generally, really funny and high-energy, and also horn-augmented by Mark Pender (from the Conan show, actually).
Songs songs songs, lots of songs:
Birdhouse in Your Soul
Cowtown
Mr. Me
Clap Your Hands
Can't Keep Johnny Down
Damn Good Times
Snowball in Hell
Particle Man
Ana Ng
Careful What You Pack
Battle for the Planet of the Apes
Paranoid/Pandor Jingle
Spoiler Alert
The Mesopotamians
Lie Still, Little Bottle
Cloisonne
Don't Let's Start
We Live in a Dump
Where Your Eyes Don't Go
New York City
Spy
Dr. Evil
Dr. Worm
---
Celebration
When Will You Die
---
How Can I Sing Like a Girl?
Istanbul
Total nerd notes:
*I remember when "How Can I Sing Like a Girl?" was being used as an encore song and it was kind of a bummer choice! But this version was just John and John and accordian, and it was really nice. Also, the song has grown on me over the years.
*The heavy-noise intro to "Ana Ng" they're using lately is pretty awesome. I am pretty much forever doing a ghostly pantomime of the "Ana Ng" video dance when they play this song even if I am not technically or fully or visibly doing it.
*While I would expect "The Mesopotamians" to survive into the tour rotation well after The Else came out, I would not have expected the same for "Careful What You Pack," which I love, so: good choice, fellas.
*I don't usually buy tourdate shirts and lord knows I don't need a new TMBG shirt but: this exists (updated with the 2012 tour dates), so, yeah, I got that, obviously.
Total nerd complaints that shouldn't count as complaints:
*They were just one Apollo 18 song and one Mink Car song away from playing something from all of their rock records! I guess that doesn't sound that close, but considering they had songs from John Henry and Factory Showroom, I figured we'd at least get "The Guitar" or "Fingertips" to inch ever closer. Perusing other recent setlists, they've repeatedly come tantalizingly close (in Providence they were only short a Mink Car track and in Northampton they were only missing something from John Henry, at least if you count Older as a Mink Car representation which I guess it basically is. Obviously a good mixed-up set should be prioritize over some kind of technical completeness, but look, after forty shows, I'm trying to maintain some kind of pointless goals in seeing them over and over. Plus all shows are better with "The Guitar."
*As a longtime TMBG setlist nerd, I personally would prefer that they not open with "Birdhouse" and, especally, not encore-close with "Istanbul." But they do change their sets a lot so it's not like this always happens.
*My two favorite Join Us songs, "Canajoharie" and "Old Pine Box," were MIA. But I guess there's something for show forty-two.