I'm back! I went to SF last week for my belated (and BEST EVER!) birthday present - They Might Be Giants at the Fillmore. I know I've got a couple of TMBG friends so the rest of yall can just skip this one. Unless you wish to improve your ears and minds and even lives by joining us. It was just a really excellent concert. I've seen them four times now and this was a great performance.
I am no longer young and hip so I'd never heard of the opening dude, Jonathan Coulton, but he put on a good act. Cute nerdy rock; I'll probably get some of his stuff.
TMBG opened with Can't Keep Johnny Down, which is definitely one of my favorite songs already.
Some dude hitting golf balls on the moon / bathroom in his pants / and he thinks he's better than me!
They've got a full band for this tour. John F is a fine guitarist, but the new guitarist dude - omg, he did a badass instrumental Spanish acoustic guitar version of Istanbul then the whole band rocked it out again.
Two sock puppets made an appearance on the screen behind the stage and performed Spoiler Alert. They also complained about living in a suitcase, poor sock puppets :(
After the sock puppets were cruelly stuffed away again, the band did Fingertips live - that's the My Little Pony video I posted last week. (I remember my first CD copy of Apollo 18 had each snippet of Fingertips as a separate track, which made the whole thing just awesome to listen to on that high-tech new shuffle feature.)
They did about half of the new album and about half of my favorite old songs. Of course they played Birdhouse! I think I killed my first set of car speakers blasting Birdhouse as loud as possible. It's a wonder I never set off the airbag pounding on the steering wheel.
And the very last song - third encore - was Dead. The world needs more songs about the French Revolution.
G asked one of his friends if he was going to the show, and the friend (you know who you are) said he'd seen TMBG. Here's the thing: these guys have been singing Birdhouse in Your Soul for twenty years, and they're not sick of it and they're not just phoning it in. All the songs had the right lyrics, but they were all totally different versions. They're still playing with the songs, not just playing them. It was excellent live music and well worth the price of the trip.
I'm a bit floored that Jonathan Coulton is new to you, mostly because you're up on video games. He wrote the very catchy song at the end of Portal I and the less catchy song at the end of Portal II. David has been forcing me to listen to his other songs for years.
ReplyDeleteI love Instanbul (not Constantinople)
ReplyDeleteso jealous! But I read this last night, and have had Birdhouse stuck in my head since then. And now must torment my coworkers with some TMBG!
ReplyDeleteYour post reminded me., it's about time to explore the music service my company recently provided us. Happily they have lots of TMBG even in this German service.
ReplyDeleteFree when you call from work!!
Love the first video! What a brave soul.
ReplyDelete::gasp:: You got to see Jonathan Coulton AND TMBG? Did Coulton play Mr. Fancy Pants? Super short song, but for some reason I love it. Skullcrusher Mountain is another favorite of mine.
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