Its beauty must then be placed on a stage

After work yesterday, I drove to Philadelphia for the They Might Be Giants show at the TLA. bethje and Dorothea were already there, and they saved me a spot on the balcony. It was cool to be able to sit down for the show. I know there are people who apparently have legs and backs of cast-iron who say things like, "How can you possibly SIT DOWN during a rock show? It means you're not into it!" Actually, though, I was more into this show than many other TMBG concerts I've seen, and I think the fact I didn't have to stand up the whole time helped. It wasn't the only factor, though, as you'll soon see.

There were two openers for the show. The first was Michael Leviton, a dude with a ukelele, who was better than that description makes him sound. I liked the first song he did, which had a lot of interesting wordplay. Unfortunately, I missed a lot of his set because I was frantically searching for my ticket from the parking garage, which I never did manage to find. When I'm having trouble with one thing, I have a lot of trouble concentrating on anything else, which means that Michael didn't get as much attention from me as he should have. I still came away with a basically positive opinion on him, though, which is more than I can say for most openers.

The second opener was The Last Car, and my opinion on them was a lot better than "basically positive." They were super-excellent. Beth and I had seen them before in New York, and they did a lot of the same songs, as well as the three numbers about Mr. T that had appeared on the podcast. I bought their CD, every copy of which has a different picture on the front. I really should have gotten another one, so that Beth I could each have our own, but oh well. Anyway, what's really awesome is that, after their set, Amy Miles and Chris Anderson came up to the balcony, and I got them to sign the CD. I didn't get an autograph from Robin Goldwasser, unfortunately, but you can't win 'em all. She DID walk behind us at one point, but it was during TMBG's set, so it really wasn't a good time to try to talk to her. That now makes two occasions when Robin walked right by me in a situation where I couldn't say anything. Maybe the third time will be the charm.

TMBG's own set was one of the better ones I've heard. The entire setlist can be found here, so I won't bother reproducing it, but I will mention the highlights (of which there were many) and the lowlights (of which there were refreshingly few). Although I've probably seen them upwards of twenty times by now, I don't think I'd ever been to a show when a new album was actively in the works. They did "Why Did You Grow A Beard?" and "We Live In A Dump," both of which I knew from the podcasts (and the latter of which was apparently co-written by Chris Anderson); as well as three songs that I'd never heard at all before: "Careful What You Pack" (during which John Flansburgh had everyone in the audience hold up their cell phones), "The Cap'n" (or possibly "The Cap'm"; I think my spelling makes more sense, but then, when has John Linnell been known for making sense?), and "Bee Of Bird Of Moth." There was also "This Damn Band," a new song for introducing the band (bet you never could have guessed THAT one, huh? :P). There were also quite a few old songs in the set. Even if the rest of the show had sucked, getting "Number Three," "Nothing's Gonna Change My Clothes," AND "Purple Toupee" at the same concert would have made it all worthwhile. No "Everything Right Is Wrong Again," which I understand they'd been playing at other shows on the tour, but once again I feel compelled to point out that you can't win 'em all. There were fewer overplayed songs than usual, and even the ones that I've heard live so many friggin' times that I normally groan inwardly when they show up in the set ("James K. Polk," "Fingertips," "New York City," "Istanbul") weren't that bad. While I think it's probably time for the band to give "Fingertips" a rest (it was interesting as a novelty at first, but it really doesn't strike me as something that belongs in the set for all eternity), I do still love Flans's spoken-word bits during the "I'm having a heart attack" bit, and last night was no exception. I had heard that Dan Miller was back to playing extended guitar solos before "Istanbul," and I was kind of dreading it, but I ended up actually liking it a lot. I'm not sure if it was because I got to sit down during it, or because I hadn't heard it in a while, or it was just better than usual, or what. I kind of wish he'd start doing the solos to introduce a better song, though. It sounds like he's building up to something, and then, finally, here it comes...a song that we've all heard eighty zillion times! Oh, well. There was no "Particle Man" or "Older," for which I'm thankful. I mean, those songs are short, so they're not THAT big of a deal, but I'm still sick of hearing them.

There were several Venue Songs in the show. They did the Los Angeles and Anaheim ones early in the set, and I was wondering if they'd do the TLA one (since, you know, they were AT the TLA). Not only did they play it, but they played TWO DIFFERENT VERSIONS. The first one sounded like it does on the album, and was accompanied by the crew dressed in weird white hooded garments and forming the letters "YMCA" style. The other one, which was the last song of the night, was a mellow, keyboard-heavy version without the techno beats. They also did the Stone Pony song as part of the encore.

There was a lot of amusing banter and activity from the Johns, not all of which I can remember that well, but a few of my favorite parts were:

• Flans pushing Dan Miller out of the way of during the solo in "Birdhouse In Your Soul."
  
• The following exchange, which I reproduce to the best of my memory:
  
  Linnell: How's it going?
  The audience screams unintelligibly, as audiences are wont to do.
  Linnell: That's right! It's going "waaaaah!"
  Flans: You know, "waaaah" is a gateway answer to "mwahahaha!"
  
• When Flans accidentally started singing the wrong verse of "Meet James Ensor," so they started the song over again, but with an introduction.
  
• A comment from Flans about how they like the podcasts because they're so cheap, they don't even like to think about paying for their OWN music.
  

So, yeah, great show overall. After the concert, we ate at Denny's, where I had the Moons Over My Hammy, along with lousy fries that I didn't finish. And that's about it, really. I wonder when the next TMBG album will be coming out. I'm definitely looking forward to it. But that pretty much goes without saying, doesn't it?