Shows/1994-10-28
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They Might Be Giants
— with Frank Black opening —
Irving Plaza in New York, NY
October 28, 1994 at 9:00 PM
Fan Recaps and Comments:
Billed as a "Nostalgia Night" with Joe Franklin - "Stroll memory lane with Joe Franklin & a set spanning the bands' history."
Tickets were $18.
"Original Giants Plus Two Stand Tall Their Own Way" by Ira Robbins
Newsday, Oct. 29, 1994:
RECALLING the last time They Might Be Giants, then an unknown duo of local eccentrics, played Irving Plaza in the mid-'80s (to two-dozen people, he said), guitarist-singer John Flansburgh briefly savored the vindication of the Brooklyn band's four-night home stand Thursday.
And with good cause. In this decade he and John Linnell (vocals, baritone sax, accordion, keyboards) reached international stardom by walking their own inimitable high wire of infectious hyper-wit, singing impossibly tuneful, improbably disjointed whimsies concerning such idiosyncratic topics as night-lights and palindromes, science lessons and Belgian painters (specifically James Ensor, not Rene Magritte, whose surrealist ironies perfectly mirror the group's dadaist visions). As careerists of devout originality, the Johns' only concession to the normal expectations of popular music is the recent addition of a bassist and a drummer for touring and recording.
Although their songwriting seems to have lost some of its febrile absurdity of late (Linnell's "The End of the Tour" sounded unabashedly sincere, something the pair's songs never do), the two Johns remain consummate showmen, eager to please-so long as it's on their own terms. That paradox reached its sublime peak in a perfect rendition of Steve Miller's "The Joker." As the group distilled sarcasm from seriousness, it made a mockery of what appeared to be reverence.
Otherwise, the Giants continue to do things their own way - and get away with it. In typical high-concept fashion, each of these four shows is different: Thursday, billed as "talent night," was actually a regular set, although two horn players and guest guitarist Jay Sherman Godfrey did add their talents. Friday was nostalgia night: TMBG played oldies with Joe Franklin as MC. Tonight the group is expected to perform its current album, "John Henry" (Elektra), from start to finish. Monday (the only night for which tickets remain) is a Halloween party with a volunteer "guitar army."
The proper band format is proving a boon to the Giants' live presentation; in addition to the energy generated by a supremely reliable and fluid rhythm section (bassist Tony Maimone and drummer Brian Doherty), the quartet setting frees Flansburgh and Linnell from the prerecorded tapes to which they used to be bound. Their songs' intricacy precludes random flights of improvisatory fancy, but at several points the foursome clearly, and delightfully, followed its own mind. During one encore Linnell conducted the musicians and the cheering audience in a free-form freak-out that would never before have been possible.
The jury is still out on the Giants as an expanded recording unit, though. In a 90-minute set, the material from "John Henry" was only occasionally as entertaining as the pair's earlier work. Of a dozen new tunes in the program, only a few (especially the peppy new-wave rush of "Sleeping in the Flowers," whose lyrics support the band's outwit-and-conquer appeal to young fans resentful of the looming straight world) reached the dizzying heights of "Don't Let's Start," "Twisting," "Ana Ng," "The Statue Got Me High," "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)," "Why Does the Sun Shine?" or "Birdhouse in Your Soul," all of which were re-spunked by the new lineup for full-bore fun. Fortunately, the running order spread the jam around evenly, and dull patches which were generally deficient by comparison more than by content were promptly redeemed by infectious sing-alongs.
