Shows/1995-03-06
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Links:
Setlist: (incomplete and possibly out of order)
Encore:
They Might Be Giants
— with Soul Coughing opening —
Bogart's in Cincinnati, OH
March 6, 1995 at 8:00 PM
Fan Recaps and Comments:
Tickets were $15 in advance, $16 day of show.
Review by Chad Hobbs:
I am not THE biggest TMBG fan... But I love everything I have heard.
Which is about 3-4 albums worth. I saw the show at bogarts in
cincinnati, OH march 22 (?) it was a monday... The opening band was
Soul Coughing... Which kicked ass. A great band... However during the
opening act I realized that this show was going to be A LOT rougher than I
expected... I thought "Hey, it's TMBG... No one can mosh to this..."
How wrong I was. BOGARTS is a small club (which is great) it seats about
1000 (?) people. Well durring the opening act 2 people were actually
INJURED. As a result of a fight. Others were hurt while crowd surfing.
I actually saw people surfing durring the intermission... WITH NO MUSIC.
When TMBG came out it was anarchy. I was immediatly crushed. And was
crushing other people. Mind you I am stage center about 5 feet back into
the crowd. I maintained this position for the entire show. (although it
nearly killed me) By the end I had lost my glasses (which I wouldn't
have worn if I had known it was going to be that violent.) and I got
kicked in the head by a surfer... *OUCH* But it was great...
TMBG played for almost 2 hours... And they played HARD. Highlights for
me was hearing TMBG's redition of "The Joker" by Steve Miller (is that
the right title?) They did a great job. I loved it.
So, are all (or any other) TMBG concerts this violent? I enjoyed myself
at this one... But I had a hard time actually watching the show (partly
because after I lost my glasses I was blind -- but also because I was
always "defending" myself)
"They might be quirky, but Giants are fun" by Rob Hartzell
The Cincinnati Enquirer, Mar. 8, 1995:
"Quirky," in critic-speak, usually means "geeky," "weird" or "hard to describe." It's a word often used in stories about the alternative rock band They Might Be Giants. But, as they proved Monday night at Bogart's, "quirky is a good thing.
There are traces of polka, jazz, reggae and punk influencing the band's oddly appealing pop-rock sound. But it's all melded into a mish-mash that makes it impossible to single out one influence. They have geeky down to a science, too. Vocalist/guitarist John Flansburgh and vocalist/keyboardist John Linnell sing in slightly nasal tones that makes it impossible to tell apart on record. On stage at Bogart's, the bespectacled Flansburgh dashed around and contorted himself like something out of Revenge of the Nerds.
They might look like high school science teachers, but they performed with more charisma and energy than a whole band of Axl Roses. From the minute they hit the stage, opening with their cover of "Istanbul Not Constantinople," to their frenzied final encore, "Dig My Grave," the Giants had the sold-out crowd bouncing in place for a near-solid 90 minutes.
Maybe they were trying to make amends when they got a conga line to form midway through the set. They lightened the atmosphere when they tore into a cover of the moldy Steve Miller chestnut "The Joker." Geeky, maybe, but They Might Be Giants looked like they were having fun.
Especially during the material from the band's new album John Henry. Songs such as the single "Snail Shell" and "Sleeping in the Flowers" add a noticeable guitar crunch to the band's offbeat formula. Before the Giants started playing, a manager announced that there was to be no crowd surfing. "We won't threaten to stop the show, but we won't play as well if you do it," Linnell warned, after the band took the stage.
