Shows/1990-05-16
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Links:
Setlist:
- Siftin' Intro
- Lie Still, Little Bottle
- Particle Man
- Your Racist Friend
- Someone Keeps Moving My Chair
- Kiss Me, Son Of God
- Lucky Ball & Chain
- Ana Ng
- Hearing Aid
- Whistling In The Dark
- Purple Toupee
- The Famous Polka
- Chess Piece Face
- She's An Angel
- Istanbul (Not Constantinople)
- (She Was A) Hotel Detective
- Where Your Eyes Don't Go
- Birdhouse In Your Soul
- Cowtown
- 32 Footsteps
- Road Movie To Berlin
- Twisting
- Nothing's Gonna Change My Clothes
- Shoehorn With Teeth
- Don't Let's Start
- Hide Away Folk Family
They Might Be Giants
— with The Jack Rubies opening —
Beacon Theatre in New York, NY
May 16, 1990 at 8:00 PM
Fan Recaps and Comments:
Tickets were $20.
A review of the show by Ron Delsener
Variety, May. 30, 1990:
Giants John Flansburgh and John Linnell arrived onstage with a boisterous following of youthful fans in tow, racing through a set of tunes primarily off their current "Flood" LP, with a theatrical lighting effects and a backdrop of huge postage stamps.
Unfortunately, the Beacon proved to be as oversized as the stamps, and a misguided attempt to fill the void with deafening sound levels merely made their tongue-in-cheek lyrics and self-parodying melodies all the more unimpressive.
Performing in a deadpan style befitting their nerdy intellectualism, Flansburgh and Linnell are capable musicians and amusing composers whose strongest turns — including the country put-on "Lucky Ball And Chain" — blend knowing verses with referential tunes reminiscent of Elvis Costello. On the other hand, their frequently droning delivery and singsong lyric style can result in childish pranks like "Particle Man."
In sharp contrast, the curtain-raising Jack Rubies lashed out with a pounding 45-minute set that would have had any club crowd on its feet. Hard-edged renditions of "Mona Lisa" and "Book Of Live" were a world apart from the stylized affectations of the Giants. — Vern.
While a mostly college-age crowd cheered, the band's attitudinizing only highlighted the fact that, while they might be giants on the club scene, Giants lack the spark and originality needed to command wider attention.
"The Appliance of Giants" by Andrew Collins
New Musical Express, Jun. 9, 1990:
The Giants have been touring Europe and the States constantly since Jon mate 'discovered them', and tonight's show is as close to a homecoming parade as they'll get. The Beacon is packed with plaid-shirted boys and hundreds of screaming girls. Not surprisingly, very few of them have forked out the $25 for a psychedelic TMBG fez, but XL T-shirts bearing the legend 'Brooklyn's Ambassadors Of Love' are prevalent right across the theatre's 3,000 capacity.Despite the occasional thinking rap record and an injection of Euro talent (Sinead, Stansfield etc), the Billboard chart is still clogged indefinitely with Michael Bolton, Heart, Bonnie Raitt and their unchanging ilk. The US pop mainstream needs an enema; a jolt from within - and They Might Be Giants might be the ones to provide it.
About a year ago, when the head-turning 'Lincoln' LP emerged (on One Little Indian) the British public didn't have any preconceptions about the band. Now that they've signed to Elektra, they've had their ugly mugs on TOTP and half the nation's got them pinned as a gimmicky nerdhouse cabaret act; artwankers in the area; Afraid To Rock but Quite Content To Fiddle About With A Euphonium And Watch Star Trek. Being a duo, they offend strum-and-drum band purists; being songwriters with no ear cocked to the latest trends, they upset the tasteful; and being ordinary-looking, they will not survive Style Trial. But, to experience TMBG live - especially in a 3,000-seater - is to blow your mental barriers sky-high.
There are only two of them onstage. No session support, no dancing girls, no panto scenery, no dry ice - just five enlarged postage stamps and a metronome. For 'Whistling In The Dark', John L hugs an accordion, and John F bangs a big bass drum. It is not a minimalist 'statement', it is a brilliant, effective, bold arrangement of a song that's so simple it requires no frilly stuff to make it work. It is a typical stroke of deep scary nonsense; Edward Lear meets Freud. And, as I said, if you don't dig it - who cares? - there'll be another one along in a minute.
Songs old and new are dropped one after another into the writhing, open-mouthed congregation of fast-fed New (York) Kids at John and John's feet. Playing their crafty, offbeat love-and-therapy songs to a bunch of 200 students is one thing; infiltrating the vacuum of squeaky-clean teenypop universe is another one altogether.
