September 2007, #2: TMBG at the Moore Theatre
Wednesday evening I went to the Moore Theatre to see They Might Be Giants. Neither the Moore's website nor any of the concert calendars I'd looked at listed an opening act for this show. However, promptly at show time, two members of local band Harvey Danger appeared on stage to do a short opening act.
Vocalist Sean Nelson and pianist/guitarist Jeff Lin of Harvey Danger played a half-hour set of their songs, including "Carlotta Valdez", "Little Round Mirrors", and "Pike St./Park Slope". Nelson's strong voice and Lin's spare accompaniment worked well with the theater's acoustics, creating very affecting renditions of the songs. I hadn't really listened to Harvey Danger's songs that closely before, and was surprised to recognize most of them. The stripped-down versions made it easy to appreciate the intelligence of the lyrics, and gave me a new appreciation for their songs. Although it was understandable that they would not play their biggest hit, the anthemic "Flagpole Sitta", it would've been interesting to hear it reinterpreted by the duo in this setting. I enjoyed the set and, realizing that their usual full-band sound will be different, am still interested in hearing more of their music.
They Might Be Giants - as if you didn't know - are the duo of John Flansburgh (guitar and vocals) and John Linnell (keyboard, accordian and vocals), with Dan Miller on guitar, Danny Weinkauf on bass, and Marty Beller on drums. They played a rocking set of songs that spanned their career from their first, self-titled, album to their most recent release, The Else. This was an interesting show for me because I haven't been keeping up with their releases and only know a couple of the songs they've released in the 2000s, so about a third of the set was new to me. Among the newer songs that I enjoyed were "Experimental Film" and "Damn Good Times" from The Spine, and "The Mesopotamians" from The Else. The show's first half also featured "Doctor Worm" (with confetti cannons), "She's an Angel", and "Twisting".
The first part of the show had a few odd bits, such as a "phone calls from the dead" segment in which Flansburgh, offstage, "called in" as "Richard Milhouse Sagan," brother of "famous Washingtonian" Carl Sagan (not actually from Washington), and sang a couple verses of "Swing on a Star" (by Bing Crosby, actually from Washington) with Linnell. The stage banter also felt a bit stilted at times, as though they weren't quite sure of themselves. However, the waves of love rolling in from the audience loosened them up, and they gave back as much love as they got. Early on they urged everyone to come stand in the aisles as close as possible, and asked with sincere concern whether the security was discouraging such behavior; fortunately the theater staff were very tolerant (indeed, they seemed remarkably good-spirited for this show). At one point TMBG instigated the crowd in the aisles to form conga lines out of the theater and back in, before going into "No One Knows My Plan".
Although the first half of the show did have some rocking songs, I felt the show really kicked into high gear in the first encore, when they brought out a horn section* on trombone, trumpet and saxophone. The horns really enhanced their sound and I was surprised they reserved them for only half the show. Standouts in the second half included "Particle Man", "She's Actual Size", and "Memo to Human Resources", which featured solos from each of the horns. For the true encore of the show, the three horn players came out front to do an extended introduction to "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)", and the song brought down the house. Overall, this was not the best TMBG show I've seen, but it was still a great time.
*Edit: since writing this review, I've learned that the horn section was The Velcro Horns West, including Jim Honeyman on tenor sax, Dan Levine on trombone, and Bill Dowling on trumpet.
