Linkstew

Okay, here's the transcription of what They Might Be Giants played tonight at the Fillmore. I used my Palm V tonight, and last night I used paper, and I find it interesting to contrast how much more I was able to take down as far as quotes go with the Palm. The main advantage was the backlight. Anyway, this is a fairly straight transcription of the set list and quotes. In the next couple of days, I might do some sort of compare and contrast thing of the concerts, and just ramble about how I felt about the concerts and so on.

The opening band, Noe Venable, played 2 more songs tonight than last night. Um, one of them was called Tinkerbell. What more immediately springs to my mind were the TMBG songs she mentioned, which tonight were Chess Piece Face and Turn Around, but she again mentioned the Conga Line. "I have one more song and then They Might Be Giants will come on, and then we'll all be congaing out there together."

It was nice that during the gap where they were setting up for TMBG after Noe Venable that they played some nice Tango/Salso music, as opposed to last night's irritating loud rap. Also, Alert caught me totally grooving to this music, and she called me on my claim that I can't dance. Heh.

• Clap Your Hands
• New York City - Woohoo!
• The Sun
  "It is so hot that everything on it is a gas: iron, copper, extension cords, and those little things you use on a phone cord to split one jack into two lines... These things would all be a gas."
  "The sun is so large that a million earths could sit... fit inside. Actually, technically, they can sit inside."
  "The nuclear reactions between San Francisco and Berkeley, Berkeley and Oakland, Oakland and Berkeley, Berkeley and San Francisco, and San Francisco and Oakland." -- After flans said this, it was amusing to see him stop and look out at the audience and smile approvingly at the audience's reaction. [1]
• "So we have a new album out..." -- flans
  "No!" -- audience
  "Yes we do..." -- linnell
  "No!" -- audience
  "Yes, we do..." -- linnell
  "We're at the stage of our career, like springsteen, where what our audience is yelling just doesn't make any sense, but we still get it." -- flans
  "This next song is off of our new album." -- linnell
  "No!" -- audience
  "Yes, it is." -- linnell
• Bed Bed Bed
• In The Middle, In The Middle, In The Middle - "This song has sound advice for kids and adults alike." -- flans
• Everything Right is Wrong Again
• "So when we were making this children's album, everyone was wondering if we were going to become a children's show. So at about that time I started trying to cut back on coffee, but I started drinking this Red Bull shit. Y'know, the secret ingredient in this stuff is Tourette's [2]. But it's really not fitting in with this 'less swearing' stuff." -- flans
  "You mean this 'less swearing' shit. And it's pronounced Turrets, because it's the chemical." -- linnell
  "They grow it naturally deep in the south american rain forest." -- flans
• John Lee Supertaster
• Dead
• I've Got A Fang - I like this song a lot live.
• Dr. Worm
• "This is from John Henry... from the much maligned Elektra label. The title of the song is ... The title is the first line of the song, so I'm not going to spoil it for myself."
• Meet James Ensor
• 4 of 2 - "This song is about a clock. Kids like clocks. They're right there between Dinosaurs and Ponies." -- flans
• They Might Be Giants public service announcements, with a crazy driving beat by Linnell's little magic synth box.
  Flans mentioned the new rarities cd they're selling on the tour called They Got Lost [3], and then said "This next song is on that CD. But it doesn't have this beat. [pause] Stop that thing. [pause, quietly] It's driving me crazy."
• On The Drag
• It's So Loud In Here
• Robot Parade
• Don't Let's Start - Double woohoo!
• She's Actual Size
  During the drum solo customer service, #3 was "Lars Ulrich from Metallica," [4] after which Dan shook his head a lot, and Flans finally relented and had him play someone else for #3.
  Afterwards, Flans said "And a big round of applause for Dan Hickey for putting up with that song." So true.
• "We were nominated for a Grammy this year... And when we won, my first thought was "I guess Sting's check didn't clear." Don't boo, I'm just tellin' it like it is. We all know how the music business works." -- Flans
  "Now we're saving up for a Nobel Prize." -- Linnell
  "Myself, I'm only up for a Science award. None of this peace shit." -- Flans
• Boss of Me
• Istanbul - Have I mentioned recently how much I like Dan Miller's acoustic guitar intros for this song? Well, I do. I'd be happy with just the acoustic guitar without Istanbul following it, in fact.
• No!
• Fingertips
• "It was at exactly this point in the show last night [5] that I smelled chocolate chip cookies. And I didn't think about that again until right now. But there aren't any cookies here. Someone must have ate them." -- Linnell [6]
• She's An Angel - Triple woohoo!
• How Can I Sing Like a Girl - Um, I just don't like this song very much, I'm sorry. It's got some good lines, but I don't like the song as a package.

First Encore:
• Violin
• Birdhouse In Your Soul
• The Guitar - I'm very tired of hearing this song live, but I think they need to do it so Danny Weinkauf gets his chance to show off his bass skills.
• Everybody Conga - "People in the front, Conga towards the back, away from the stage, get in the fucking line!" I love the conga line, and if Noe Venable (the opening band) had anything to do with getting this played (she demonstrated that she was a TMBG fan by referencing the conga line), then I want to pat that little girl on the back. We started out very close to the right side of the stage, right in front of Linnell, and ended up left of Flans when it was all done. "Conga even faster, during this next song..."
• No One Knows My Plan - Quadruple woohoo! But alas, the conga line died when this song started, which is silly, considering *this* is the conga song.

Second Encore:
• Spin The Dial
  * Train's Drops Of Jupiter became "I Dance Like a Girl" with a lot of amusing dancing by Flans. It had Danny Weinkauf cracking up.
  * They came across The Who's My Generation [8], which they did a great job picking up.
• Older, with a reprise of My Generation. Also, Linnell totally messed up the end of the song; He somehow ended up singing "this day will soon be over and now it's even sooner" after the improv break, and he ended the song with "And now it's even sooner, and now it's even sooner, and now you're older still." I was amused.
• James K. Polk - I'm sick of this song just like The Guitar, but without this where would they fire the Confetti Canon?

[1] We decided afterwards that the reactions between Oakland and San Francisco would be the most violent, based on the whole weird anti-SF ad campaign that Oakland's got going on (sorry, a google cache was the best I could offer).
[2] Actually, the secret ingredient is Taurine, which is close enough to make this funnier.
[3] 1. "They Got Lost" is a really fantastic name for a rarities CD (the song by the same name aside). 2. Of course, these are only rarities if you didn't subscribe to TMBG Unlimited last year, like I did.
[4] Which is much funnier in the context of last night's discussion about Lars.
[5] Except they didn't play She's An Angel last night, so I'm not really sure what he's talking about. Maybe he meant after Fingertips...
[6] Emily Dickenson indeed [7].
[7] Only one person is going to get this joke.
[8] This was rather ironic, because TMBG's song I Hope That I Get Old Before I Die was a twist on My Generation's lyric of "I hope I die before I get old"