Shows/2007-10-24

5 wikians attended: Chefsalad Doktorworm Kassi RLJohYouDid Snowballinhell7001

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Setlist:

• Intro
• The Cap'm
• Why Does The Sun Shine?
• New Haven
• Take Out The Trash
• The Mesopotamians
• It's Not My Birthday
• The Famous Polka
• With The Dark (full version)
• Phone Calls From The Dead (Dick Cheney)
• Older
• Snail Shell
• Spy
• Birdhouse In Your Soul
• Withered Hope
• Put Your Hand Inside The Puppet Head
• Memo To Human Resources
• Upside Down Frown
• Mammal
• XTC Vs. Adam Ant
• I'm Impressed
• Particle Man
• Drink!
• Alphabet Of Nations
• Whistling In The Dark
• She's An Angel
• Doctor Worm

Encore 1:

• Damn Good Times
• Graveyard
• Istanbul (Not Constantinople)

Encore 2:

• Twisting

On the setlist, but not played:

• Ana Ng
• Fingertips

They Might Be Giants
— with Oppenheimer opening —
Toad's Place in Richmond, VA
October 24, 2007 at Doors 8:00, Show 10:00

Fan Recaps and Comments:

Kassi:

The mascot of Toad's Place, a person in a very large tuxedo-and-monocle-bedecked toad costume, came out onstage for TMBG's reprisal of the New Haven venue song. After posing for a couple of photo ops he grooved over in front of the drum set.

John Linnell was feeling a little under the weather, upper-respiratory-wise, but nevertheless played and sang an excellent show.

When the vice president phoned in on their necrofiberoptic line for Phone Calls From The Dead, he mentioned that while he was not dead he was living in a crypt. He also craftily had the NSA trace the call since he'd been getting reports of "a lot of baloney sandwiches coming from this building."

For the audience participation part of Particle Man, Linnell informed us that if we stopped clapping at any point, we would end up like Sanda Bullock at the end of the movie 'Speed' -- "...blown up!" He ignored the crowd's protests that she didn't blow up at the end of the movie. Making stuff up onstage is all in a day's work for the Johns.

The marching bass drum came out for Whistling In The Dark with the glorious swirly Indestructible Object logo in white vinyl on black.

She's An Angel remains the new live version, with a backing drum loop during the verse that's turned off for the chorus. I personally love it, but I'm unrepentantly strange. Don't take my word for it, experience it yourself!

They'd covered the ends of the confetti cannons with the giant yellow foam 'They Might Be Giants' hands they've been carting around with them, so when the cannons were set off during Doctor Worm the two hands blew off into the air along with the cannons' load of confetti. Some of the hands were also tossed into the crowd by Iggy and Tucky before the show, and they were given away one with each purchase at the merchandise stand.

Oppenheimer put on an awesome show. The bass was so transcendantly loud it shook every blood vessel and nerve ending I possess. They're really sweet guys, too.

Also, the Toad's Place staff are awesome people. They were incredibly helpful, accomodating and friendly. All in all, a great show!

Magbatz:

First off, Oppenheimer were amazing, and really cool people as well.

Oh, and TMBG were alright too I guess. Linnell did a great job of directing the Spy weirdness improv by making little grooves on his mini-synth-device and having the rest of the band following him. Flans really surprised me. I guess from what I had been hearing, I expected him to basically defer all guitar-playing to Dan Miller and for him to lose his voice after the first ten minutes. But Flansburgh just exuded the persona of pure rock superstardom (which explained the running joke of him holding his guitar over his head and dancing like whoever that was-- Eddie Van Halen?). I cannot overstate his greatness. He (and Linnell too) also were quite talkative that night, although I couldn't tell you exactly what they talked about.

As for particular highlights of the show, I can start by saying that if I could relive any three minutes of my life, it would be the duration of Them playing Puppet Head. There also was With The Dark, and I believe this was the first time that they played the song all the way through with just the five-piece. John and Mr. Miller were strumming away like mad, Danny was just plain owning, Linnell was pounding the keys, and Marty was mashing the drum set apart during that blissful 30-second instrumental bit. Other notable moments were New Haven, Birthday (mmm, accordion), Famous Polka (mmm, gratuitous guitar-hero-audience-guitar-touching -- and more accordion), XTC Vs. Adam Ant (The Quintessential American Rock Performance), Mammal, Angel (yay neat drumloop), Drink! (no wait!), Older (featuring distorted guitar and some confused drunk who, after a few seconds of the band freezing, kept it going by shouting the lyrics himself), and Memo (although the crowd strangely booed when this one started). And of course the final encore, Twisting, which had an extended and awesome bridge that you could just tell the band never wanted to stop playing. So, yeah, this show completely blew me away, I could not have asked for a better first TMBG concert.