Shows/2026-05-03

From This Might Be A Wiki


• Setlist

Setlist:

Set 1:

Set 2:

Encore 1:

Encore 2:

They Might Be Giants
Vic Theatre in Chicago, IL
May 3, 2026 at 8:00 PM


Fan Recaps and Comments:[edit]

Aisterion:

Perhaps the best set of the three Chicago shows this year. Was hoping for Head or Dead Guy (as noted in the last review) but Dig covers all those areas in a way I can't entirely explain. My favorite of Apollo 18, and also quite possibly my favorite TMBG song ever. I'm happy they set some time aside to do some songs from there. No beard/glasses check! Shame on you, Johns!
Chicken Guy update: no chicken guy! Maybe I left at the wrong time or they were somewhere else, but they were not there to harass the beloved parasocial fans of this band.

Mintakamoth:

My 4th TMBG show in 8 years. I try to catch them whenever they come to Chicago. I wasn't able to see the other two shows this time around but out of all of them I'm glad this is the one I saw. I've never seen them play so many songs from Factory Showroom in a show, and there were a lot of songs I never would have expected to see live otherwise. I was delighted by the inclusion of The Bells Are Ringing and Spiraling Shape, though I wish they'd have played Till My Head Falls Off, I still haven't seen them do that one live yet.
Anyway, the first set was a big highlight- the songs from FS and the ones from the new album complemented each other well. As always the band had an excellent stage presence. Some fun banter this time around. Flans pointed out someone near the front was wearing a suit, and there was a joke about Marty having "adult-onset dignity" wrt being the only one to dress up to any extent for the show. The topic of Frank Sinatra came up (I believe Dan Levine played for him at some point and called him "Johnny Levine" the entire time) and Flans began doing a voice and pretending to be Mr. Sinatra, and introduced a couple songs completely wrong- one was "I Wanna Hold Your Hand," which turned out to be Pet Name iirc, and he introduced another as being written by George Harrison.
At some point Linnell joked about having a parasocial relationship with the audience and believing that we were all his friends. Someone in front of me said "we're your friends!" and he replied "That's not true. We don't know each other."
Also, Flans mentioned before XTC vs Adam Ant that he had to look up the 2nd verse on the wiki beforehand, and he still ended up messing up the lyrics a bit and you could actively see him reel for a moment once he realized.
The 2nd set and encores were great too. Dan Miller stole the show by getting up on one of the balconies during Damn Good Times. Kind of an interesting selection mixed in with the big hits. Didn't expect Stuff is Way ("Still no idea why that song blew up" - Linnell) or Cloisonne but they certainly weren't unwelcome. Linnell made a long pause in the middle of Older to mess around with the stylophone and I remember seeing the Dans look at each other in hilarious disbelief. I'm so glad to have finally seen them play She's Actual Size, it always seemed much better live than the album version, and it absolutely didn't disappoint. The horns were electric.

Barlowe:

My first show since the Join Us era!!! Some stray thoughts & observations:
  • The band was loud! I don't think I've ever seen them with the horns, and it felt like a massive loudness upgrade. (Either that or I've just forgotten how high volume TMBG can get.) I'm not complaining! It was just wild to hear them tear into song after song -- especially the more eclectic set after the intermission -- with this incredible giant band.
  • The Factory Showroom songs were, as you might imagine, extremely well received. Flansburgh joked something along the lines of, "Why weren't you all working at Elektra in 1996?"
  • Flansburgh said the horn arrangement on "How Can I Sing Like a Girl?" was by Linnell!
  • As someone else pointed out, there were lots of Sinatra stories (mostly about him not getting Dan Levine's name right -- "he doesn't seem like the kind of guy you'd correct") and impressions. The impressions all seemed to be referencing specific Sinatra live shtick I'm not familiar with. Flans would drape his right arm over the mic, covering his face, mumble something about how he was first and foremost a saloon singer, and introduce a specifically misattributed Beatles song, e.g., "This next one's called, 'Yesterday' and came from the pen of Ringo Starr" or "This next one's called 'I Wanna Hold Your Hand' and it was written by George Harrison" (and then they'd immediately go into a TMBG song). If someone who knows more Sinatra lore can point to the old concert footage or album where this all comes from, please chime in!
  • Linnell was taking pictures at one point with some kind of unusual camera. Flans joked about it in the band intros -- something like, "and John Linnell on the weird camera."
  • After "James K. Polk," Linnell also talked about Chicago's streets named after presidents (e.g., Washington, Adams, etc.) -- something about how shortly after naming a street after Polk, they seem to have given up on this system, possibly because Polk was a not-so-great president. (He also clarified the band was *not* a fan of Polk's presidency.)
  • Before "XTC vs. Adam Ant," Flansburgh talked about recently learning that Andy Patridge had discussed the song on his podcast. Flans said learning that one of the guys in XTC had heard his song felt like "the moment the hand reaches out of the TV," and how he has a sort of professional dysmorphia -- how his coping mechanism for being in the band is to essentially pretend it doesn't exist.

G-l-o-ckenspiel:

When Flans was doing his Sinatra thing and talking about saloon voices and saloon singers, he said, "It reminds me of a song by a certain Danny Weinkauf... 'Where Do They Make Saloons?'"

Sloop_Goop:

Wonderful show! I have nothing but good things to say about this night but I will say my favorite part is when Linnell acknowledge my brother for wearing a suit to the show.
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