Shows/1989-03-10

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Links:


Setlist:

Encore #1:

Encore #2:

Encore #3:

They Might Be Giants
— with Deja Voodoo opening —
Ecstasy Club in Berlin, Germany
March 10, 1989


Fan Recaps and Comments:

(Translated from German)
"Pop & Bullishness" by Thomas Winkler
Taz, Mar. 13, 1989:

Life is hard enough, and yet there are a whole bunch of stupid little things that make it just that much more confusing and frustrating. For example there are official concert start times, and then there are those start times being moved back because of late arrivals and the whims of an agency, leaving the people who were planning on them hanging. Thank god there was the headliner, “They Might Be Giants”, otherwise this author would have lost anything to criticize by cleverly avoiding the opening act “Deja Voodoo”, which was actually the only reason he’d come in the first place.


The rhythm section comes from a tape, while accordion, guitar, and vocals are live. Many songs are acapella, but even as a die-hard rock fan, I still don’t feel like there’s anything missing. I’m standing on the stairs, behind the young man with the horn-rimmed glasses and the young man with middle-length hair, both of them in plain T-shirts and jeans. They’re exactly the type of neighbors that you never see, but that wake you up every morning, because they just bought a new, crazy instrument - some kind of Indian moon lute or something - at the flea market, are absolutely dying to try it out and play it for the whole house to hear. Or the type of neighbors that get the idea to install a Dial-A-Song Service on their answering machine and record a new self-written song every other day.

So there I am, standing on the stairs behind the stage, and the hundreds of shining eyes I see can’t be wrong. This is just what they wanted - Fun. Sophisticated fun, of course. Although we’ll never turn down completely wacky songs like “Youth Culture Killed My Dog”. The relationship between pop and crap- or more fittingly, between pop and nonsense, is perfect.

The young gentlemen also have a flair for cabaret, and invite someone with a “good feel for rhythm” to come onstage, handing them a medium sized tree trunk and instructing them to beat it in time to the music. As the guest musician loses control of the piece of wood a few seconds later, the audience is called upon to help and clap along. But even the piece of advice to stop listening and just look at the hands in front of the stage doesn’t help and it’s only on the third attempt that they manage to almost make it to the end of the song.

Two typical American college kids (East coast, went to school in Boston - probably the only place in the USA, where someone would come up with these types of ideas), that aren’t afraid of anything, proud Brooklyn residents who want to sink Manhattan, an approach to music so twisted you wouldn’t even expect it from the Brits, romping like a couple of kids through the art pop department store of the postmodern. Nothing is sacred: No melody, no matter how corny, and no riff, no matter how stale. Everything (at least everything that has hit potential), everything is pawed and grabbed at with thick, greasy fingers. But you can’t be mad at the little ones. They smile way too innocently for that when you try to bat their hands away.


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