Shows/1992-08-07

Fan Recaps and Comments:

"They Might Be Giants might be dance band, or catchy pop duo" by Seth Rogovoy
The Berkshire Eagle Sun, Aug. 9, 1992:

LENOX — In what will surely be considered one of the highlights of the summer season, They Might Be Giants rocked a large, vibrant audience at the Berkshire Performing Arts Center Friday night with its singular brand of catchy, goofy pop.

For well over an hour, the duo of John Flansburgh and John Linnell blazed through new and familiar material — and threw in a few surprises to boot — while the greater part of the crowd was on its feet in front of the stage, dancing and pogoing when the music so moved them, as it often did.

They Might Be Giants has a dual appeal. One the one hand, it has an incredibly cerebral, intellectual aspect. Virtually every song is a lyrical joke and a send up of some pop music form or other. No one is safe, whether it be jazz guitarist Pat Metheny — who was skewered during their opening jazz-rock instrumental complete with wordless vocals — or any number of '60s pop groups, whose efforts are variously parodied or bettered by this duo that takes no musical prisoners.

On the other hand — and it was perhaps this hand that was in greatest force Friday night — They Might Be Giants just simply play enormously appealing, catchy music, with strong roots in Beatleseque pop and a broad command of other popular styles.
What is easy to lose sight of on their records is that for all their humor, for all their jazzy excursions into avant-garde and experimental sounds, They Might Be Giants is a great dance band, as they proved Friday Night to the delight of the mostly college-age and younger audience.

Highlights of the show included a spiced-up Cajun arrangement of "Particle Man," the British Invasion tribute "Narrow Your Eyes" and "Piece of Dirt," which hung the Righteous Brothers out to dry.

A feature of every They Might Be Giants show is a "stump the band" section, where they attempt to play an audience request that they swear they have never played before. Some unimaginative clod asked for Santana's "Black Magic Woman," but the band made the best of it, including an uncanny imitation of a Carlos Santana solo by Flansburgh.