Last night I got to see one of my favorite bands, They Might Be Giants (TMBG). My adoration for their sing-song, non-sensical lyricism stems back to the release of 'Flood' in 1990. 1990!!!!! I feel so old. I mean that's like 20 years ago. I don't feel like I should be able to say I have liked anything for 20 years except for maybe the Jetsons and Sesame Street.
The evening started off by having dinner at the historic Fitz's in the U City Loop. Fitz's is a famous rootbeer bottling company that's based in St. Louis. They have a building (originally built in 1928) on Delmar with an actual bottling line where their root beer and other sodas are made. Rob, Sara, and I enjoyed a few with burgers and nachos before walking a couple blocks (in the freezing cold!!) to the Pageant. The Loop is a funky area that has random shops and restaurants. You see a lot of college students hanging around from nearby Washington Univ. (Hence U City = University City).
The Pageant is a great place to see a show. It's small with a great layout. There's plenty of room on the first level, but the balcony is where it's at. The best part is that the balcony is 21+. They have some theatre-style seats as well as plenty of standing room and a full service bar. We had a great perspective to look down at the myriad of instruments on the tiny stage.
When TMBG took the stage, they looked identical to how they've looked for the past 20 years. The Johns were in top form. Their voices -- John L's especially -- sounded absolutely identical to the albums. Whatever they're doing, they must be doing it right!
97% of the setlist was from 'Flood', which is probably their best known album. They also played a few new songs from their upcoming album 'Here Comes Science'. (Check out the vid below for the Element song.) About a quarter of the way through the setlist, eerie spotlights flashed and alien keyboard sounds announced the arrival of the Avatars -- sock puppets controlled by the Johns. The Avatars were projected up on a screen by a seemingly-homemade camera perched on a drum and the Johns performed two songs as their alter-egos. It may sound lame, but it was freakin' brilliant.
My pix didn't turn out great, so here are some good ones from the Riverfront Times. It was such a great show!!
John Flansburgh
John Linnell
Meet the Elements
3 comments:
Cool. I'm so glad you had fun! I followed the links from your pics and read about the show at the Riverfront Times where they had a set list. According to it they played every song from Flood. Just the order was a little mixed up and they threw some other songs into the middle of them. Still a great set of songs they played. Wish I was there!
Wow...you must've had some great seats - those pictures are fantastic!
And I heart "Birdhouse in Your Soul." It's my favorite. :)
Yes!! It was an AWESOME show! They didn't play the songs from Flood in order... they said it was an accident, but I think they planned it that way. The only other songs I wanted to hear live were Ana Ng and Dr. Worm.
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