Shows/1998-05-09

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Setlist: (incomplete and out of order)

• Finished With Lies
• Particle Man
• New York City
• Don't Let's Start
• Counterfeit Faker
• Battle For The Planet Of The Apes
• XTC Vs. Adam Ant
• Exquisite Dead Guy
• James K. Polk
• Birdhouse In Your Soul
• Istanbul (Not Constantinople)
• Ana Ng
• Doctor Worm
• The Guitar
• Shoehorn With Teeth
• Shoehorn With Teeth (CD Skip Version)
• No One Knows My Plan
• Spy
• Lie Still, Little Bottle
• S-E-X-X-Y
• Dig My Grave
• Why Does The Sun Shine?

They Might Be Giants
— with Double Dong opening —
Williams College in Williamstown, MA
May 9, 1998 at 8:00 PM

Fan Recaps and Comments:

Photo by Samantha Grant from The Williams Record.
"They Might Be Giants, conga lines and frozen drinks: A SAC-sponsored concert brings They Might Be Giants to campus."

This was Hal Cragin's final show as bassist for They Might Be Giants. He had been playing with the band since October 10, 1997. Following the show, Cragin went on tour with Iggy Pop and recruited Danny Weinkauf as his temporary substitute, who eventually became the band's permanent bassist.

Reviews from The Williams Record, May 12, 1998:

Mixed reviews meet TMBGs performance at Lasell

A Fan's Perspective by Tess Gadwa

I have seen the future, and I know what Williams needs. We need people to fire large cannons at us, preferably on a regular basis, preferably filled with confetti. Think what this would do for another humdrum Baxter lunch, another boring Bronfman lecture: love, camaraderie and high spirits would erupt and fill the room. Students would not only dance, they would bounce up and down and chant. The cannon which exploded in the middle of that paean to Western expansionism, "James K. Polk," was only one element of the They Might Be Giants show. Opposing walls of sound and bodies pushed and pulled the crowd throughout the night. The atmosphere could be exhilarating or unbearable, depending on your predilections and where you stood.

They Might Be Giants, John Flansburgh and John Linnell of Brooklyn, New York, have developed a unique and eccentric musical style. On their albums, bizarre and occasionally unlistenable moments of experimentation coexist with the loopy pop anthems ("Birdhouse in Your Soul") for which they are best known. At first I was skeptical that a mainstream Williams audience would warm to the band's idiosyncrasies. The first song seemed to bear out these suspicions. In the unfamiliar "You'll Never Believe Me," ["Finished With Lies"] John Linnell's pessimistic and repetitive vocals dragged and droned. The band gathered steam with their next song, "Particle Man," but the tempo was still a little slow, the playing jangly and uneven.

Through the guitar driven "New York City," and as John Linnell wailed out "Don't Let's Start," the band's momentum grew. For the country tinged "Counterfeit Faker," Linnell teased sounds from his accordion. By the time the band orchestrated "Battle for the Planet of the Apes," (the Johns were the apes, the rhythm section were the people, and the crowd raised their fist and chanted for apes or people in turn) the audience knew they were in for a show unlike any other. Extrovert guitarist John Flansburgh belted it out for "XTC versus Adam Ant." On stage its full slamming impact blew away the paltry studio version. Songs like the final encore, "The Sun Is a Mass of Incandescent Gas," (a 50s educational song played at double speed) made one realize the value of seeing this band live. It is a particularly valuable experience when the concert is free.

With an ample and impressive setlist of over 25 songs and four encores, there was room for old favorites like "Birdhouse," "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)," and "Ana Ng," and for new weirdness like the strangely exultant "Dr. Worm," which will appear on their upcoming live album Severe Tire Damage. Bass player Pete Velasquez [Hal Cragin] also excelled. He seemed to have a great time during "The Guitar," stretching the sounds of his instrument into Primus-esque percussion. Other highlights of the show: eerie, Chuckie-like, talking puppet heads for "Exquisite Dead Guy;" "Shoehorn with Teeth" at fast-forward speeds; the all encompassing conga line for "No One Knows My Plan" and "Spy."

The Giants prove that with enough creativity, anything can become an instrument, from the shifting volumes of mikes waved around amateur-style to the crowd itself. In this manner, Flansburgh also used the microphone stand, which he brought out triumphantly for the beat intensive, bluesy "Lie Still, Little Bottle." The stick remained on stage as John sang to it lovingly for the lounge-style song which followed. From "Sexxy" to "Dig My Grave," the last four songs before the encores formed a seamless progression: sex, nasty breakup, paranoia, then death. The two Johns seemed the happiest when singing about the death part.

The opening band, Double Dong, resembled what might happen if the Ephlats wandered, by mistake, into the Rocky Horror Mansion and had unthinkable experiments performed upon them. One might paraphrase all their various unprintable lyrics with the following: "We have no instruments. We have no talent. We have only body parts to thrust in front of you." And thrust they did. As campy performance art, they were mildly diverting; musically, they sucked.

What makes They Might Be Giants different from them? Aren't the Giants all about gimmicks — lights, colors, fog, giant faces in the background, props and hokey tricks? Maybe so, but there is more to them. For one thing, their songs actually have melody, and you can ted the songs apart. The Giants ready try to break down traditional concert dichotomies: audience, revolving spotlights, and heads on sticks ad become part of the performance. These extras are not there to compensate for lackluster songs, they are part of the songs, integrated into a seamless whole. As the concert went on, the band displayed such a range of instrumentation that there had to be something for everyone. Twelve years after their first album, their inventiveness and range continue to amaze. In other news, John Linnell played shoeless, for the second time in his career. His socks were black.

An Outsider's View by Scott Moringiello

So, I've actually seen They Might Be Giants before. I once won free tickets to see Elvis Costello, and TMBG opened up. One thing has remained the same since I last saw TMBG: they are still a bad band. This is of course not to say that I wasn't entertained by the concert. When TMBG broke out with "Little Birdhouse in Your Soul," I started dancing and jumping around. I'll admit that fact openly. In fact, I was dancing around and having a fairly good time during a few songs of the show. This doesn't negate the fact that TMBG is bad.

I guess there are those who find an accordion a viable instrument to use when coupled with a guitar and sometimes witty lyrics. I am not one of those people. I'm also sure that there are those who are entertained by red lights on stick puppets and a pseudo ventriloquist act. Again, I don't count myself in their number. Nor was I particularly entertained by the "humans versus apes" chant that became not only tired and trite, but exceedingly annoying. In fact. I'll be so bold as to say that I am one of the multitude that could not care less about any of the "new songs" that TMBG have performed.

The fact is that TMBG is a band with a cult following. Like with any good cult, the fans are enamored by songs that might or might not be any good. For people outside that cult, the songs lack appeal. I guess I'm wondering a bit about why TMBG was brought to campus. I don't recall any vote that took place in which I (or anybody else for that matter) voiced any opinion for getting TMBG. But then again, SAC is the same organization who felt a reggae band (from warm, sunny Jamaica) would fit well into the theme of Winter (read cold and cloudy) Carnival.

The larger question then becomes why would SAC want to bring a band who hasn't released an album in about two years to campus (even though TMBG played a few songs off their "upcoming" album I doubt Toonerville will have a hard time keeping that one on the shelves). Now Yo La Tengo recently played at Middlebury and Sonic Youth played at the University of Chicago (and played in Northampton a few weeks ago). Needless to say, I would have much preferred it had either of these bands played at Williams. I do realize that I might be one of the few students who would like to see these bands. Fair enough. At the very least, it would have made sense to involve the student body at large when at least ten thousand dollars were spent to bring the band to campus. That way, cultish bands high on gimmick and low on talent would have tog o through some type of evaluation before arriving on campus.

I will admit that people had fun at the show, but I would venture to say that anytime as many Williams students as were at the concert get together, people will have fun. I think that it's silly to pretend that the music of TMBG had much at all to do with us having fun. I don't need TMBG to get in a conga line. Instead, I would have liked to spend my time listening to a band that has some musical ability, oral least a band I could have had some voice in choosing.