Shows/1994-11-03
You must be logged in to mark yourself for being at this show.
Links:
Setlist: (possibly Incomplete! and out of order)
- Meet James Ensor
- Particle Man
- Istanbul (Not Constantinople)
- Subliminal
- The Guitar
- Don't Let's Start
- AKA Driver (they dedicated it to their taxi driver, and didn't sing the word "Nyquil")
- Why Does The Sun Shine?
- Extra Savoir-Faire (Flansburgh said it was about "a really fucked up guy")
- Ana Ng
- No One Knows My Plan
- Stomp Box
- The Famous Polka
- The Statue Got Me High
- Whistling In The Dark
- Dirt Bike
- Sleeping In The Flowers
- I Palindrome I
- Birdhouse In Your Soul
- Unrelated Thing
- Spy
- Frankenstein
- The End Of The Tour (John said this song "means everything to me.")
Encores:
They Might Be Giants
— with Frank Black opening —
State Theatre in Detroit, MI
November 3, 1994 at 7:30 PM
Fan Recaps and Comments:
The setlist here (complete with its notes and out-of-order caveat) is culled from Dave Matteson's e-zine Butt Fuck Digest (ahem), issue 5, posted to the Usenet group rec.music.industrial on Nov. 5, 1994. He writes:
this song is about steroids
i am writing this on 11/4 at the last minute before putting this thing out :)
wearing the concert shirt from last night, and still hearing the ringing in my ears and my throat is sore... i can barely talk.. you know, of course, what concert i am talking about... tmbg at the state theatre in detroit. it was amazing. it was the best concert i have ever been to, including nin, ministry, and many other bands, this beat them all to shame...
...
after a few minutes, frank black enters the stage and begins to play after the crowd calms. mr. black plays some happenin' tunes (whoah, cool phrase..heh..) and entertains the group a lot. dave enjoys himself and particularly likes 'pong' but sean is disappointed at the lack of his favorite song being played. (free cookies go to whoever can guess it.)
nobody guesses, dave eats the cookies.
after frank finishes (sorry, this is a tmbg review, not a frank black review) there is a 30 minute wait, during which many strange tunes are played, 'disco inferno' is among them. this is viewed by many as the highpoint of the evening. dave is disappointed when john travolta does not show up.
...
eventually one of the john's is seen backstage. dave smiles and is happy about this. a bit later, the giants emerge on stage. they talk and begin playing 'subliminal' (yes? i forget whether it was first or second, i think it was first,..)
after the first song, the john's are forced to make the request 'please don't kick each other in the face at our concert.' the next song is played.. for 4 more songs, after every one the john's have to make a similar request because of the idiots crowd surfing wrong. they are kicking people in the face, there are many small children up front who are being hurt (those parents deserve a kick in the face, what were they thinking bringing their kids to this? oh well, not my fault they're gonna be deaf..) one girl hyperventalates and is forced to be braught out from the front by a security guard.
...
it turns out that john requested that all crowd surfers from now on are to be removed from the building. after dave sees the first escorted out he screams 'yes!' and bounces a lot. (he had been bouncing already, but this was particularly joyous.)
ana ng is the highlight of the evening, imo. however 'dirt bike' and 'the statue got me high' were terrific as well. a strange version of 'istanbul' is played, very cool. many variations on the songs are present, and it is enjoyable to all. here is a setlist (not in order, just what i can remember. i pro'ly forgot a couple.. they played a lot.)
very cool show, i came away with a piece of the theatre...hypothetically..:)
well anyway, catch them when they come by your area, it was a great show, i really enjoyed it and they made many hilarious comments, such as this ;
'this sound comes absolutely free. you know that deep rich bass sound? no extra charge. when you have that ringing in your ears tomorrow, you will know that it was free. we get that all the time, we can tune our instruments to it!'
heahhaeh :) .. well anyway, it was the time of my life, i loved it.
"Giants, Black humor audience with comedy and conga" by Mike Mattison
Pioneer Press, Nov. 13, 1994:
Frank Black strolled onto the State Theater stage Friday night and positioned himself beneath a single 100-watt light bulb. The former Pixie was simplicity itself, dressed in black shirt and slacks, black shades, an acoustic guitar in tow - like his generation's Roy Orbison, without the hairpiece.
Black picked out the intro to Ozzie Ozbourne's "Crazy Train" and set the pace for an evening of studied musicianship for commit-ted wise-asses.
Conga lines formed in the balcony and up and down the emergency exit aisles during "No One Knows My Plan." Kids periodically shot up in their seats and started to twist. People who didn't know how to twist started to twist. Some record industry people looked like they might be be thinking about maybe starting to twist. And then didn't.
Lacking a band, Black's voice came to the fore, turning songs like "Headache" and "Ramona" into folksy sing-a-longs that occasionally brought a tear to the eye. Black proved that he is a living resource of vocalizations, even without studio assistance. He can sing anything, shifting schizophrenically mid-song from belly howls to Franki Valli.
His message, finally laid bare in "Two Reelers," is plain: "What we need is more silly men." They Might Be Giants took up where Black left off.
John Linnell and John Flansburgh slogged through their recent accordion hit "Meet James Ensor" and older MTV favorites like their 1990 remake of "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)."
Just when things appeared to be sinking down to the lamest coffee-house denominator, the safety curtain shot up to reveal a four-piece band. Geek cabaret gave way to a gigantic stadium sound, and a bounce through TMBG's demented brand of Vaudeville.
Watching the crowd, with crooked grins and academic glasses, was almost heartbreaking. But at the first sound of "Don't Let's Start" it was strange to watch the State Theater transform into what can only be described as a student council meeting gone silly.
- The show was opened by Frank Black, alone onstage with a guitar, and then another guitar over that one, and then he added another, until he was wearing 4 or 5 at the end of his set. Frank was not a small man at the time, so he looked a bit like a black pin cushion for guitars with a little bald head on top. I recall he sang some song about Pong.
- And then it got dark, and the countdown chant began, with more experienced TMBG concert-goers holding up their fingers to count down along with the countdown voice (Linnell?), and then the Johns and Co. took the stage. I can't remember much of the set list, but it was fun to see Flansburgh jamming and dancing in his full, manic glory. He did, however, take time to admonish the crowd against the practice of crowdsurfing, warning that "it's a supercharged bummer to get someone's heel right in your eyesocket." I have used the term "supercharged bummer" as often as possible in the years since, and you should, too.
- As this show took place a few days after Halloween, Flansburgh said that it would be appropriate to play a Halloween tune, and so the band rocked out Edgar Winter Group's "Frankenstein." I learned that there is no point in ever playing this song without an accordion in the arrangement. That was the encore, and the final number, and we all went home happy.
