Shows/1988-04-16

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• Poster • Listing

Setlist: (Incomplete!)

• Number Three
• Shoehorn With Teeth
• Hide Away Folk Family
• I Hope That I Get Old Before I Die

They Might Be Giants
— with The Areolas, The Tone Ales opening —
Second Story in Bloomington, IN
April 16, 1988 at 9:30 PM

Fan Recaps and Comments:

Show review and interview from the Indiana Daily Student, April 18, 1988:

Giants get to know their fans at Second Story by Stephanie McKinnon

For many followers, the performance of They Might Be Giants was like the arrival of a long-awaited leader. The audience knew the words, the grunts and the beats. After Saturday night they knew John Flansburgh and John Linnel.

With incredible energy, obnoxious props, a devout crowd of fans and five encores, Flansburgh and Linnel created a show more impressive than their albums. Bouncing to the drum machine in the rear, the guitar-and-accordion-playing duo began the show like choreographed kangaroos. Coordinating arm movements the two broke into their first song, "There's Just Two Songs in Me," with the strength of three giants, and continued the night musically and physically along much of the same lines.

Because of their "enslavement to their own creation," (the drum machine), as Linnel said, the pace of the show was like a play. No spontaneous acts were permitted out of the parameters of each allotted song. But their creative improvisation between songs and within the permitted time only proved the creativity and genius energy of the two. Goofy guitar riffs, melodic, churning accordion solos and humorous physical stunts demonstrated this creativity.

Although Flansburgh and Linnel have each played their respective instruments for five years, they have become masters. Flansburgh on the guitar can funk, country and polka. Linnel churns and pumps the accordion to limits never conceived of by a once strictly defined instrument. "I had played keyboards as a kid, and I just picked up the accordion five years ago," Linnel said backstage after the show. "The sound is really fun, especially with the guitar." The combination of the two adds hoe-down-like beats, incredible speeds and wide-ranging octaves to their strange musical stories, all oddly phrased and originally written.

"We write individually, then try it out on each other," Linnel said. "Most of our songs just evolve from whatever comes out in practicing sessions. We just let the music take it away and see if we like it." Such wackiness was demonstrated in their props as well. Three cardboard heads hung from the ceiling in odd array, bouncing slightly when the crowd began to slam dance. Laughter abounded most, however, when the two placed four-foot, red velour cone-shaped hats on their heads. It was like being at a birthday party of gag gifts.

During the encores the audience became part of the act. "You think you can just come to a show and let us do all the work," Flansburgh yelled at the crowd like an agitated mother. The two held the audience in their power, making them "peep" a beat for a drum track-void song, "Scream as if in hell," hold hands with their neighbor and sing a song six times from cue cards. "We usually get a pretty good response, but this is crazy," Flansburgh said. "You're like a large sports crowd."

Although many of the songs performed were from the band's second album, due to arrive in two months, the audience still reacted strongly to the moving beats, grating sounds and humorous words, which were as clear as album versions. "It's not mystical, really," Flansburgh said. "People know us by our music. They don't follow us because of some image or style of clothing, we don't invest our time in that. We're different than most rock bands because of that, and I think people respect that and enjoy what we're doing."