Shows/2010-09-24

Fan Recaps and Comments:

This show included the first live performances of "Three Might Be Duende", "Nonagon", "How Many Planets?", and "Canajoharie".

RecipeForDisaster:

Really super show including new songs Duende and Canajoharie, which I enjoyed a lot (and added to the setlist here). The horn section was a treat. Marty's new-ish transparent drums sometimes had awesome rainbow lighting inside them.

The banter is paraphrased here-I've never had so much trouble understanding it, probably helped by the extremely loud and persistent people behind me. Sorry if I get something wrong. The horns played parts of Frankenstein between songs...

When introducing Duende, Flansburgh sort of apologizes that they may screw it up, some girl is like 'it'll be cute!'-Flans says 'it's not cute, lady'. Flans had an open copy of Hiroshima in his hand before/during the song [1]

Avatars were used for Shooting Star and Stalk of Wheat.

Istanbul had quite the horn introduction.

Linnell mentioned that this was the first time How Many Planets had ever been performed live.

Before Purple Toupee, Flans said "it's about 1988!"

Armicron:

It was a very high energy show, opening with several of my favorites.

Before the show I noticed a sign hanging from the mezzanine which read: "She's an Angel" then underneath it "We've been together for 10 years!" I couldn't help but wonder if they opened with that song because of it.

During the concert in some very big songs (I believe Dr. Worm was the first one) there was a confetti cannon that shot over the groundlings in the audience. Once about an inch or two of it was at everyone's feet people started picking it up at points during the concert and throwing piles of confetti around.

The sound was great, it's always exciting for them to have their horn section with them when THEY play. But I had a hard time hearing Flans and Linnell in a lot of their banter as well as some of the songs. The banter was far far less than what I had seen at other shows, but it was still fun.

At 2 times the johns moved over to the side of the stage where a live feed camera was set up and pulled out 2 sock puppets referred to as "the avatars" of the johns, later on they joked about the avatars... the only thing I remember clearly was one of them saying one was a homosexual.

Overall it was a great, it was my first time in the new Lupo's and it was an excellent venue. This show felt the most like a rock concert, compared to the other shows I've been in, which felt more like comedy sing-a-long shows.

jsh357:

This was just a fantastic show. I had never been to see a band live, and I'm glad it was TMBG. First things first, it really warmed my heart to see such a crowd there. Even though I'm totally confident that I love TMBG regardless, it made me feel a lot less weird to see hundreds of fans also geeking out and singing along. I picked up a hoodie with the "Snowman burning some dollar bills" picture on the back. Classic Giants.

Before coming, I found out They were going to be playing three brand new songs, so I was stoked. I assumed that most of TMBG's shows nowadays were all kid stuff or nothing but classic tunes, but was pleasantly surprised that they stuck mainly to songs from The Spine and The Else with hits and kid songs thrown in. It's great to see that the band has not been afraid to move on with the times.

Set design was a bunch of neon and confetti cannons. They were excellent. No William Allan White heads, unfortunately.

I posted a full set list on my Facebook, but I'll just mention some observations about a few songs here.

"She's An Angel" - They came right out and played it! This song is on my wife and I's wedding album, so it was very moving to hear.

I was surprised they went with Spine tracks since I thought it was one of their less popular albums, but they sure seem to like the songs on it. Can't complain myself, and the crowd dug it.

"The Guitar" - I'll admit that I never cared much for this song, but seeing it live was totally different. It had so much energy, and the dancing/waving that goes along with it makes it extremely memorable. Definitely one of the songs I've changed my opinion of the most since the concert.

The Avatars said TMBG would have a new album coming out in 2013. Not sure if that was a joke or not.

"Whistling in the Dark" - Totally ruled with the brass

"How Many Planets?" - Linnell claimed this was the first time they have played this live. You could tell; they screwed it up the first time.

"Canajoharie" - Sorry, not sure of the title. Linnell was very adamant about this one being sketchy and didn't want it circulating online. I thought it sounded awesome.

"Memo to Human Resources" - They had almost played all of The Spine at this point!

"Your Racist Friend" - This had to be the best performance of the night. It actually sounded like the party described in the song, haha.

Overall, it was an amazing show with lots of hits and obscure stuff, too. I would love to see them again some day, and am glad I'm living in New England right now so it was easy to go.

BeatlesLover

I was in the pit area, about 10 feet from the stage. I could faintly hear people singing along to most of the songs, but it was practically impossible to hear anything over the music and the screams. They opened with a few good songs; Damn Good Times had the awesome dueling guitars, and DJ had Triceratops being generally awesome. John F. introduced a new song as "Three Might be Duende," and he read all of the lyrics out of this little book so he wouldn't screw them up. It was kind of funny to hear how silent the audience was during that song; they were as loud as normal during Canajoharie. Museum of Idiots and Dr. Worm are both absolutely awesome live, what with the brass section and all. They had to restart their first live performance of How Many Planets because Flansburgh forgot to say Venus, which was a pretty funny moment. The first encore had the Avatars of They come out and do Stalk of Wheat, which was pretty unexpected for me, and during the second encore John Linnell basically didn't sing along to the first verse, so there were gaps at the beginning before Flansburgh caught on. Istanbul had the most ridiculously long opening ever. Basically, an awesome show overall, they played a bunch of stuff I wasn't expecting, and it was my first concert at Lupo's, so a pretty nice way to get acclimated!

Mongoose:

Good solid show. High-energy songs seemed to be the order of the day, and the three firings of the confetti cannon made for a very 'party' atmosphere towards the end. So much confetti.

Linnell's mike went wonky during "Alphabet of Nations", making for problems- and when Linnell went to grab Flans's mike for the "Azerbaijan, Bolivia, Canada" park, Flans swatted him away because the other mike was back on. You could tell they were out of sorts for that song.

Marty Beller's new stage-right position worked very well. He's so high-energy that it really shone. Dan Levine in the horn section was all smiles and laughter the show, too. Good to see the band enjoy themselves.