Shows/1999-09-29

Fan Recaps and Comments:

Review by Nabeel Ibrahim:
Drinking Spider James K. Polk

Flans: "Good Evening, we're They Might Be Giants. Thank you all for coming to the show. It's very exciting to be here tonight. We've got a bunch of brand new songs. This is about a person who's totally out of their mind and it's called 'She Thinks She's Edith Head.'"

She Thinks She's Edith Head [During the middle of this song, Flans yelled out "Chuck Berris"]

Mr. Klaw Older Twisting Radio They Might Be Giants on WiredPlanet.com

Flans: "That's a song called 'Radio They Might Be Giants on WiredPlanet.com' that we like to play."

Linnell: "I've been singing 'at' the whole time. Is it 'at' or 'on'?"

F: "'At'. I think we're saying the same thing."

L: "While we're talking about it, I've gotta ask...I can't wait 'til after the show to ask you this question."

F: "What is it?"

L: "Why did you say 'Chuck Berris' after we played Edith Head?"

F: "It was sort of like Chuck Berry...but not Chuck Berry. A couple letters different."

L: "That's what I thought. I was just checking."

F: "I don't know. I was just riffin'. So people ask us what our songs are about, but it's impossible to explain so just to leave it up for interpretation we'll play that last song again. Ready fellas?"

Radio They Might Be Giants on WiredPlanet.com

Flans: "I think I am singing 'on'."

L: "We'll have to ask the webmaster if it should be 'on' or 'at'. Are you 'on' WiredPlanet.com or are you 'at'?"

Crowd yells "at"

L: "There are webmasters in the audience tonight and I hope you brought your cake." [What is this reference to cake?]

F: "Here is a song we like to do. It's about a guy with one eye instead of two and that's the way he is. He's hateful and angry and he resembles myself. This song is called 'Cyclops Rock'."

Cyclops Rock

L: "So this next song involved our bass player, Mr. Graham Maby, coming up to the microphone singin'. That's 'singing apostrophe'. And this song is a special dedication to our opening act, 'You Were Spiraling'. I'm speaking of course of the song from 'Factory Showroom' called 'Spiraling Shape.'"

[L starts playing]

L: "Ohhhhh, I'm sorry. Introduce the song, miss the countoff. Those are the rules."

Spiraling Shape She's Actual Size

F: "So, we've got this mp3-only record out, 'Long Tall Weekend'. It's got a bunch of brand new songs on it and yet we're still playing other songs that you might not know and 'Cyclops Rock' isn't available anywhere and this next song is also brand new. It'll be out sometime in the very near future, we hope, and Mr. Linnell will tell you more about this next number."

L: "That's right, John! This next song we're gonna play is a new song that most of you don't know. It's called 'It's So Loud in Here'. It goes like this..."

It's So Loud in Here

L: "Here's one from the vaults from the way-back machine. Here's a chestnut from the vaults because we keep our chestnuts in the vaults in the way-back machine."

Letterbox

F: "So, we're from Brooklyn, New York, and y'know, it's always very exciting to be on a block where there's more people muttering to themselves than in Brooklyn. It's a very exceptional circumstance. We were walking around outside the club and it was really, really fucked up. I don't what kind of city you're running here, but this open-air mental institution thing is really kinda weird. Set them all free! So, we're scared of this place. We'll be leaving shortly, but not until we sing this next song. This song is about Brooklyn...it goes all the way back to Brooklyn and people muttering to themselves. Like me. So, here we go..."

Narrow Your Eyes [Flans fucks up about 15 seconds into the song]

F: "Excuse me. We just started doing this song. We never performed this song until, like, two days ago. I'm still learning the words to a song we wrote six years ago. So here we go. My apologies to the band. I'll be getting my ass kicked later. Here we go."

Narrow Your Eyes Ana Ng The Guitar [Band Intros] No One Knows My Plan

F (singing): "Shawn, Shawn, bring out the glockenspiel. I hate this rock music, bring out the glockenspiel. Mr. Shawn, our glockenspiel tech, has brought out the glockenspiel. But who will play the glockenspiel? Who? We need a volunteer from the band. Just one brave soul from the band. Oh yes! It's Mr. Dan Hickey, our drummer. He's come to play the glockenspiel.

Shoehorn with Teeth

F: "Y'know, ladies and gentlemen, we've done this thing--hold on, Dan. Don't go. We've done this thing in this town before so I'm not gonna explain it, but if you know what we're doing, you can tell the person next to you so they can understand what's happening."

L: "And then 20 people next to you."

F: "Pass it along. Anybody here at our last show? So you can clarify for the people who weren't."

Shoehorn with Teeth (fast version) [Neither my girlfriend nor I remember them doing this at the last SF show]

F: "I don't think you guys did a very good job of explaining since the guy was still yelling at the end of the song. Mr. Shawn Dillon, the glockenspiel tech. All the way from--where are you from? New Jersey!"

Particle Man The Famous Polka

F: "So this is a song originally written by a group called Cub from Vancouver. The song is called 'New York City'."

New York City

F: "This is off our live (??) album. We want you to want (?) the sun."

Why Does the Sun Shine? She's an Angel

L: "Thanks a lot. We just have one more song to play before we vamoose. We want to say thanks a lot for coming to the show, you guys were super great. We want to thank Chuck Berris for everything he's done for us. We want to thank our crew. We want to. If wishes were fishes, then there'd be a lot of fishes up here. Here's a song--I can work a segue out of this somehow, if I could think a little hard. This song is about a worm, a very special worm, and it's called 'Dr. Worm'."

Dr. Worm

[First Encore]

Spy Counterfeit Faker

F: "Ladies and gentlemen, we want to thank you for coming to the show. We want to remind you that Austin Powers 2, Dr. Evil with They Might Be Giants is coming out in October. The soundtrack record with our song Dr. Evil on it and we also have Mr. John Linnell's 'State Songs' album is also coming out later this month and ****he'll be performing at Slim's in November, ladies and gentlemen.**** See the 'State Songs' show at Slim's. And, what else? Emusic. We've got a 'Long Tall Weekend' record out, mp3 release only at Emusic. We've got one more song. We want to thank security for keeping us safe from each and every one of you. Security, ladies and gentlement. Show your love. And we want to thank our crew. Thanks again. See you later."

Birdhouse in Your Soul

F: "Thank you so much for coming out. You were a great audience."

L: "So long. Thanks a lot. See you later."

[Second Encore]

L: "Thanks a lot. You guys are super excellent, as we say in our lingo."

F: "I know I sound like Meatloaf when I say this, but we've been very lucky to have such a great audience. We want to thank you all for coming out to the shows, over and over and over again. Here's a brand new song on 'Long Tall Weekend'. It was written by (someone) and it's called 'Maybe I Know'."

Maybe I Know

F: "Ladies and gentlemen, we want to bring back our band. Our band which is [band intros]."

Istanbul (with Dan Miller acoustic intro...the intro sounds very Arabic/Spanish)

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Tickets were $20.