Shows/1985-12-17
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They Might Be Giants
The Border in Burlington, VT
December 17, 1985
Fan Recaps and Comments:
According to John Flansburgh in 2018, this show was a multi-act bill organized by the people who ran Interview magazine. He also described the venue and a stage collapse that occured in the middle of the show:
It was a black-box art-theater kind of place, we were set up on these high chorus risers like if you were in a high-school chorus going to all-state, four or five feet high, and in the middle of our show we were really into jumping around and in the middle of the show one of the chorus risers’ legs in the middle bent out and the whole middle of the stage folded in on itself. It was a very early experience with a stage collapse.
Flansburgh would mention the stage collapse again on Tumblr in 2023:
The stage seemed to be made from a bunch of risers for a children's choir ganged up, very narrow and flimsy. It didn't collapse so much as just bend underneath us. Embarrassing!
In another interview from 2013, Flansburgh talked briefly about the show:
One of the first shows we ever played outside of NYC was in Burlington. We played in Burlington, and Northampton, Massachusetts, and afterward we got a lot of offers in Northampton. We thought, "Yeah, this is how a band grows!" But it's funny because we never really got called back to Burlington. I'm looking at the poster for that show now, it says, "8BC... CBGBs... and now, Burlington!" But we never got called back.
Flansburgh would also mention that the show was billed as a "Downtown NYC" show.[1]
- I have to push back on their recollection of this show. I came down to this, along with about five other people, after my roommate interviewed them on the UVM radio station, WRUV. Border was a small club that had dancing and live music almost every night, if there was a stage it's very unlikely it would have collapsed under the weight of two people, although my recollection is that there was no stage, just a drum riser. It certainly wasn't "four or five feet high." IIRC we all loved this show, and the Johns seemed grateful for the positive reception, despite the understandably low turnout.
