Shows/1996-11-27
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Setlist:
- Spider
- Sleeping In The Flowers
- James K. Polk
- New York City
- Particle Man
- How Can I Sing Like A Girl?
- Metal Detector
- Spy
- Older
- AKA Driver
- Ana Ng
- Birdhouse In Your Soul
- Don't Let's Start
- Why Does The Sun Shine?
- Your Own Worst Enemy
- Pet Name
- XTC Vs. Adam Ant
- Exquisite Dead Guy
- Twisting
- Till My Head Falls Off
Encore #1:
- S-E-X-X-Y
- Everybody Conga
- No One Knows My Plan
- Dig My Grave (introduced as "It Might Rain")
Encore #2:
Played at some point during the concert:
They Might Be Giants
— with cub opening —
Memorial Auditorium in Kansas City, KS
November 27, 1996
Fan Recaps and Comments:
They Might Be Giants played to a relatively small, but more than enthusiastic crowd last wednesday evening at Memorial Hall in Kansas City. For those of you unfamiliar with the venue, it's a fairly small theatre in which there are no bad seats, perfectly suited to bands that don't draw huge crowds. TMBG is one of several such bands I've seen there, and this concert had the same comfortable feeling that I wish all concerts had. The biggest disappointment was missing the opening band, Cub, due to problems tracking down all the people I was supposed to go to the concert with. From what friends who did make it early enough to catch it said, however, the Vancouver group was excellent, and apparently TMBG agreed, urging the audience repeatedly to buy Cub t-shirts after the show.
Making it in just in time to catch the beginning of TMBG's set, I was extremely surprised to hear them open with "Spider," a track from their 1992 album "Apollo 18," rather than a newer or more popular track. This opening song set the mood for the entire show, however, which was just fine with me. Reaching all the way back to Their first album for "Don't Let's Start" made the evening for me, it's always nice to hear Them play some of their old tunes. The entire show was almost the perfect mix of new and old, even leaving out (surprisingly) a couple of their more popular recent songs in favor of some of the older and un-recorded tracks.
The sound quality was suprisingly good, despite the fact that for about the first half of the show John Flansburgh got a pretty good electric shock anytime he tried to play guitar and sing at the same time. They took about a 15 minute intermission about half an hour into the show, to try to fix the problem, after which the show picked up as both the audience and the band both got into the groove a little more. For they second encore, They even revived the "World's Longest Conga Line" contest, which some may remember from the St. Pat's show a couple of years ago. They also brought out the puppet heads on the poles for "Exquisite Dead Guy", which was pre-recorded, but lip-synced by the Johns' puppets.
By far one of the evening's highlights had to be John Flansburgh singing "Stayin' Alive," along with the "Spy" improv "power trip," a 5-minute segment of Flans conducting the rest of the band and the audience. Even the usually reserved John Linnell seemed hyped and happy, especially during his accordian solo during "Particle Man". Bassist Graham Maby, fairly new to the band, did an adequate job, but made no effort to be fancy, which to me seems like the way it should be. Drummer Brian "President of Jersey City" Doherty did his usual excellent job, as did guitarist Eric Schemmerhorn, who oddly disappeared for about half an hour in the middle of the show, but came back to rock out on "Ana Ng" and the rest of the show.
