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| They Might Be Giants in front of the sold out Fillmore audience (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
Geek rock pioneers, They Might Be Giants, swung through the Bay Area this weekend with not one, but two sold out shows on either side of the Bay. The first was last night at the Fillmore and saw a line of people that stretched down Geary Street and then onto Steiner who either didn't get the message to get to the show early or were running late after spending too much time over at the Cherry Blossom Festival in Japantown across the street. Luckily, the long line of people outside the Fillmore didn't delayed the band too long past their planned 8pm start time -- but if you're one of the lucky few who have tickets for their show tonight at the Fox Theater in Oakland, don't arrive fashionably late or you'll miss the start of their show!
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| John Flansburgh & John Linnell of They Might Be Giants @ the Fillmore (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
This tour was billed as 'an evening with...' which meant no show opener and allowed the band to perform two sets that included a pandemic delayed 30th anniversary performance of the entirety of their 1990 certified platinum hit album, Flood. In fact, not only were both these Bay Area shows sold out, but the bands' entire 80-show US tour is now sold out! Pretty amazing considering they're playing theaters and not smaller clubs!
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| John Linnell of They Might Be Giants @ the Fillmore (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
From the moment the show kicked off at about 8:15pm, we all knew we were in for a treat. Both John Linnell (vocals, keyboards, accordion) and John Flansburgh (vocals, guitar) were in fine form and joked with the band and audience how they were going to 'workshop' through several ideas tonight during the show -- an attempt to minimize any high expectations the crowd may have had for their subsequent performance. Linnell then noted to the band, 'remember being at the restaurant where the waitress came over and before she said anything, she just went "sigh"?' (Linnell let out a large sigh into the microphone) 'That's what tonight's going to be about.' The crowd erupted into laughter and of course, the band was joking -- and they continued to joke throughout the night.
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| They Might Be Giants @ the Fillmore (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
In terms of the stage set-up, Linnell was front and center behind a keyboard rig perched right at the edge of the stage. Flansburgh was to Linnell's right, or on the left-hand side of the stage. Just behind Flansburgh, guitarist Dan Miller took up his residence throughout the night. Behind Dan, a small riser fit the 3-piece brass band featuring trombone, trumpet and sax. Danny Weinkauf on bass was essentially in the center-right area, just behind Linnell, but in front of drummer Marty Beller who was perched on a drum riser in the back right of the stage. The 8-piece TMBG sounded fantastic and I was super impressed with the brass section who made their way to the front left or right of the stage a few times throughout the night.
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| John Linnell & TMBG's brass section @ the Fillmore (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
One of the more comical pieces during the first set was their performance of "Stellub." Linnell described how they'd taught themselves how to play "Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love" backwards and how they were going to record the performance, and play it back for us in reverse in the second set. And sure enough, to start off the second set, the giant video monitor behind the stage played their performance in reverse and it didn't sound bad at all!
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| Marty Beller of They Might Be Giants @ the Fillmore (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
This was one of the funnest shows I've seen in a long time. Their hits like "Particle Man" and "Birdhouse in your Soul" got the crowd into a frenzy, but don't interpret that to mean the rest of their set was a snoozefest! Marty's drumming kept the players together and again, the brass section just blew me away... Check out the full setlist below and hope you can make it out to their Fox Theater show tonight!
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