Shows/2023-07-15

From This Might Be A Wiki


Fan Recaps and Comments:

The second of two consecutive shows at Belly Up. Both were benefit concerts, supporting the Feeding San Diego charity. The two shows served as a "warmup" for the band's big show opening for Sparks at the Hollywood Bowl.


Fan Recap From ParticleMeg!

Words Cannot Express how much this show means to me. This was my first ever They Might Be Giants show I had ever attended and also the first show I’ve ever attended without my parents present. At the time I was 24 and just barely getting into TMBG. Without knowing too much about the band I bought 2 tickets on a whim (about 2 weeks before the show) and I brought my best friend (now girlfriend!) who knew much more about TMBG than I did. SO! We get to the show I wanna say maybe 30 minutes before the doors opened? Once the doors opened we managed to get pretty close to the stage! Only about a row of people back. Yes this was a standing show! ANYWAYS! So the show starts and my life CHANGES, they start the show with Particle Man! Cool! It’s a song I knew! I love hearing songs I know! Which is why when the next song Doctor Worm plays I am also happy! I even have footage of my girlfriend dancing to this at the show! Now after the first 2 songs I was in new territory… songs I haven’t heard before woah!!! And as the show goes on im thinking to myself woah! These guys are actually really awesome! I need to listen to them more! After a while we get to Stillub. And man was that actually wild for me because I had never heard Sapphire Bullets before this concert so my first exposure to it was actually listening to it backwards which I find really funny. So, the last song before the intermission starts! Its Istanbul! Cool! Another one I know the words to!! And it starts with this INCREDIBLE acoustic guitar solo from Dan Miller. I stood there mesmerized! I couldn’t believe what I was hearing! So the song goes on and towards the end it explodes into this amazing Horn/guitar and everything JAM. I had not heard live horns like this quite before (and this is coming from a former jazz student). Anyways! Intermission!!! I think it was at this point I had gone to the merch stand and I bought my very first TMBG shirt and a copy of Flood on Vinyl! Even after that first set I knew I had to have some physical stuff from these guys!! After that I returned to my spot! Second set started with STILLUB played in reverse! And by god I was impressed! They really could play a song backwards! They come back on stage and start the second set with Synopsis For Latecomers! Cool! I think I recall quite enjoying it! A few songs pass and I believe they eventually played Why Does The Sun Shine? Which I had listened to for the first time on the way to the concert. I had giggled because Flans was reading the sun facts (Linnell sang lead) and kept saying “According to my personal online research” I guess I should mention here that throughout the whole show their banter was really funny to watch from the perspective of someone who was new to the band! They act like they’re best friends up there which is probably because they are! Tangent over! So! Moonbeam rays was interesting because they actually messed up in the first second or so and so they had to restart the intro haha. After the rest of the second set had finished they had come back to do an encore! Woah yippeee!! i love a good encore! I remember clearly, they Played Ill Sink Manhattan first. And man once again I was Memorized. That really drew me in. What a hauntingly beautiful song. And after that I finally got to hear it. Birdhouse in your soul! At the time it was one of the only songs from the band I knew all the words to! So I sang my heart out! I was so happy! Oh! And I got footage of this on my Nintendo 3DS but it does not sound good like at all… the last encore song they played was Purple Toupee! Which was another new song for me at the time! It was finally time to go home after that! And man…I had so much fun at that show. I don’t think ill ever forget that night. I had entered that venue clueless and left a lifelong fan! To this day I remain obsessed with these two guys named John! I now own a massive TMBG collection and have joined the fan club! And I have my girlfriend and two cool guys named John to thank!

-ParticleMeg/Br00f