Shows/1986-04-30
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Links:
- The New York Times listing; Apr. 27, 1986
- New York Daily News review; May 2, 1986
Setlist:
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They Might Be Giants
— with Loren Schoenberg Big Band, Tigressa, Wendy Mae Chambers co-headlining —
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, NY
April 30, 1986 at 9:00 PM
Fan Recaps and Comments:
This was a Surrealist Ball held as a fundraising benefit for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. The event was mentioned in an April 1986 article in SAY! magazine, which reported that the band was scheduled to perform an "unprecedented gig for the season opening of the Guggenheim." Their performance was not mentioned in any other contemporary accounts of the show, but the description appears to most closely refer to this event.
Preview from the New York Daily News, April 30, 1986:
- The Guggenheim Museum (1071 Fifth Ave., 360-3554) has also chosen tonight for a gala benefit, which takes in this case the form of a Surrealist Ball. Okay. That means it will be "reminiscent of the extravagant all-night affairs held in Paris be the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in the 1920s and 30s." You do remember those, don't you, Cupcake? There will be a laser show of falling stars and music by the Loren Schoenberg Big Band. Tickets are $77.77; hours are 9 p.m.-1 a.m.
Excerpted review from "The Evening Hours" by Nadine Brozan,
The New York Times, May 2, 1986:
- "Great-grandfather would have simply loved this; he wanted something unusual in a building," said Wendy Lawson-Johnston McNeil, as she surveyed the exuberant dancing, the costumes and the strange decorations in the museum that was founded by her paternal forebear Solomon R. Guggenheim.
- The occasion was the Surrealist Ball at the Guggenheim Museum, and though the theme had artistic roots, the atmosphere was anything but museum-solemn. Some 500 partygoers danced to the unsubdued sounds of the Loren Schoenberg Big Band and listened to Wendy Chambers play "The Star-Spangled Banner" and "New York, New York" on car horns (inspired by listening to a traffic jam on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway," Miss Chambers said). They watched a laser show enlighten the ceiling and upper ramps and admired such decorative touches as a Daliesque acrylic fried egg that melted over one ramp. According to party scuttlebutt, Princess Gloria von Thurn und Taxis was so taken with the egg that she reportedly bought it before the evening began.
- Some of the 500 guests seized the opportunity to wear something surrealistic. Valerie Shakespeare, for one, swept in her "train with a train" behind her. Attached to the train of her red gown were model railroad cars complete with surrounding terrain. Steven Cuba came as Marie Antoinette, in an ornate brocade rendition of the royal dress set on sandwich boards. Linda Scott was more understated in her demure hat with plastic fruit. Andrew Permison looked her over and said, "This is how you perceive your own reality."