It was the first full moon since the storm: central Vermont had been devastated by floods due to Tropical Storm Irene less than two weeks before They Might Be Giants were booked to play the Upper Valley Arts Center, a summertime facility near the intersection of Route 5 and Interstate 91 in Norwich. On two Sundays prior—on the terrific afternoon that preceded the New Moon, and one of the darkest nights I have ever known-- the heavy rains had come too fast for too many riverside drives and homes. So much of Vermont had been washed away: cows, farms, the rich topsoil that sustained so many farms, bridges and bridge abutments, first and second-story buildings, homes, businesses, desks and desktops full of business, incoming and outgoing. Two Sundays prior the Green Mountains may have been as dark as they’ve ever been, since people got here: the ground suddenly too soft, too unstable. The storm appeared to have drawn its path across the ridgeline of the mountains, from Wilmington to Waterbury, disabling and isolating communities in its path. This was not the plight of the small nook in the woods that is the Upper Valley Arts Center, whose lot sits across from a Subaru dealership: having been braving roads still under construction to gain access to my home, I was proud to park my red Forester beside far shinier vehicles, wheels that had yet to see the spray of mud that is the revision of the crust of the earth, the remains of backroads best left to symmetrical all-wheel drive. Posters in downtown Norwich advertised the evening’s concert, and each eerily, ironically bore the Giants’ new album-logo: a pink, cartoonish, and jacked-up hearse. There was new power in showing this image to the people of Vermont, two weeks after the natural environment turned cruel, and ate so much infrastructure.
But a new and bright and completely full moon rose between the tall pines, out beyond the twilight glimmer of the Subaru dealership: I had been looking forward to the reappearance of the moon, the progression of its phases as not a metaphor but some true sense of ritual and renewal: and while the moonlight would reflect for the first time upon so much rubble in so many brooks, creeks, and streams, new and sad reflected light on the banks, where the water receded and left behind chunks of others’ lives, the white plastic-canvas of the performance tent began its smooth glow in the full moon’s shine. The last of summer had been furiously swept away, and the cool breeze that whispered outside the tent reminded one of fall—was itself the very reason the leaves on the trees were beginning their own seasonal ritual of transformation, bursting forth from the solid idle green into varying stages of drying, turning tan. The tent was big enough for the crowd; there couldn’t have been more than five-hundred of us, mostly sprawled across blankets and in low-slung foldable chairs, taking in the sunset, moonlight, music, and beer (coolers permitted). The lot was perhaps five acres of cleared, gently sloping land, and John Flansburgh described it best later in the night, when he and Linnell donned their handpuppets from a corner of the spacious tent, backed against a wall with faux windows of translucent plastic: “this is the best wedding reception I’ve ever been to!” the puppet exclaimed, its image projected tall onto the sloped ceiling of the tent through a projector. If John Linnell has always had his keyboard from which to stand, stoic and confirmed in the center of the stage, Professor Flans is interested in moving around the stage more than ever: and this is not specifically so he can perform massive Who-like arm revolutions, hammering out the thrash of syncopation and harmony, but so he can really Do Whatever He Wants. John Flansburgh, looking like a Beat poet in a light blue searsucker jacket, droopy mustache and unshaven black facial hair, and translucent sneaker, played his electric guitar wirelessly, roaming around like never before: he sang a song from far backstage, behind Marty’s see-thru kit; jumped forward and backward through choruses and riffs; dualed with Dan Miller on a number of occasions, and almost knocked necks with the bass. Flans had a far-off gaze behind his spectacles, and behaved unpredicatably. He tapped the mic as part of the opener, “The Guitar,” before taking a truly weird and especially-distorted crunch-rock chord solo—was he digging how his tweed amp sounded, its small speaker reverberant in the tiny tent? It got wild quick; never too quick at a They Might Be Giants show. “When Will You Die,” the next tune, taken from the new album, brought on the video feed: to this song, different weapons of destruction—a knife, a gun, a fist—flashed as Linnell wailed and the moon rose. The crowd had pressed forward; Flans warned the crowd between tunes, among much witty banter: “if anyone touches the stage, the show is over.” “Withered Hope” continued Flans’ madness, as horn parts were replaced by the heavy chunkiness of the electric guitar: the band became thunderous as they heard each other, warmed up and functioning as a unit through the raspy melodrama that was Linnell’s singing. In “Your Racist Friend,” a live favorite of mine for its provocative and uncomfortable nature and funk, Dan Miller took a solo on his electric that involved one of the oddest, harmonized solos I’ve ever heard: it was both an act of technical proficiency and instrumental know-how. It was amazing, one of the few Dan Miller highlights from this Giants show; he’s always been a bit expressionless, but seemed more of a distant character on this gig than others I’ve seen.
Regardless of how Dan Miller or anybody else feels about it, they and the crowd will always be at the mercy of John and John’s antics and whims: “Clap Your Hands,” a long-played kids’ song that the Giants use to engage the crowd, now involved a tight electronic clave fill, some noodling and further electric guitar thrash from Flans, and a building up of steam. The crowd—ranging from young families to dozens of children, with and without earplugs—stomped, clapped, and jumped as they were told, and the tent raged. What happened next may have been a new invention of this tour: a virtual and musical battle between the Apes and the People. The crowd was divided, and the chanting of each side of us in the tent was to be along with either John and John, or Marty, Dan, and Dan: after setting it up, explaining it to the crowd not more than once, Flans appeared giggly: and it did work too well. The lights flashed and we threw our fists in the air; Flans had said repeatedly, “get ready for some beautiful music.” It was strange and out of tune and out of sorts; it was a psychedelic event. Dan Miller picked at his guitar strings with his teeth; Linnell wailed on his accordion. The sixteen-bar jams from each band were each epic in their gratiuitous rock parody; it was a battle. “The people win,” announced Flans in stoic monotone. The crowd, Apes included, roared, so much so that the band was startled, unsure of how to calm down enough to play the next, far more serious and sensitive tune from the new album: “Cloisonne.” It is a Flans original, and was this night a fine display of the Giants’ latest songwriting and music theory, as well as their diligence and practice in rebuilding studio-based originals in a live-band setting. Marty moved to the keys; John Linnell played what Flans called the “bass saxophone,” brought out the punchy notes that held together Flansburgh’s achingly-sweet melodies: amongst other nonsense, the live performance of lyrics such as “you’ve got a friend in law enforcement/don’t go calling law enforcement” was weirdly tender. These words may stand for other things to us, the audience, than what they mean to their author. The Giants aren’t self-effacing; they are gracious professionals on tour and on stage, respectful of themselves and each other and their audience. Though I’m guessing Flans made an Elvis-like dash for the bus shortly following the tour, as their merchandise table featured autographed copies of the new album in CD ($15) and vinyl ($20), not to mention an enormous white poster featuring the giant pink hearse ($25). Flans showed off the gatefold vinyl to the crowd at one point, and made some faint allusion to being with the ‘in crowd,’ “especially in Vermont.” There was much interaction with the crowd, eye contact and laughter: this was not John and John’s first pseudo-wedding reception, but it was likely the first time Flansburgh, during the projected-puppet segment, got goofy and forced his hand puppet’s eye into the camera as he bellowed into a microphone, “are you uncomfortable yet?” They were having fun, hiding behind a kick drum that served as the video camera’s stand. The puppets were given a “Free Ride” intro and outro by the band—quite a kickin’ and brief jam—and John and John sang (as the projected puppets) a song I didn’t recognize, and is labeled “crazy” on the setlist (NOT the Patsy Cline number, Black Sabbath, or any other cover). The puppet thing was pretty funny and inventive; they used the trading-off nature of the song’s vocal lines to give a reason for each puppet to fill the frame. Back in the instrumental saddles, they played “Celebration”—a strange new (?) song, before a set of hits old and new: “Particle Man,” “Dr. Worm,” and “You Probably Get That A Lot,” the latter being from the new album. Dan Miller took another interesting solo in “Particle Man,” but otherwise remained in the background, to the foreground of Flans’ bouncing around the room and Linnell’s gaping mouth bent towards the mic, his hands like paws, clamoring at the keys. Dan played keys during “Dr. Worm” while Linnell played accordion; Flans stood idle by the drumset, appeared to be taking a moment to recharge. “You Probably…” featured Linnell singing alone, and not playing anything, as Dan Miller played the keys, and everybody kept it cool through the inventive triplets and cascading beats. Later, Dan Miller took a nominally-thrashing solo on the acoustic guitar, though his spotlight moment before “Istanbul” seemed short and rushed: there had been a War between Apes and People, and there was little space left for instrumental contemplation. The set ended, and the first encore began with the night’s choicest moment: Linnell and Flansburgh, on sax and stylophone respectively, performed “Lie Still, Little Bottle.” Linnell kept the melodic pattern afloat as Flans tinkered with the small electronic device and its wired pen (it too had a wireless transceiver in it, so it was cordless and self-contained). Marty was present for the song’s few drum hits; otherwise, Flans’ snapping and idiomatic cool-jazz vocal made perfect sense. This is the 21st century arts scene, as much as any other: the self-contained band in a self-contained bus, bringing along with them a host of lights, equipment, and ideas. The night rambled on, through their back and front catalog: “Judy is Your Vietnam” and “Careful What You Pack” were not in the set to be crowd-pleasers, but statements from two men whose lives have been spent thinking of ways to express themselves. Neither song is an especially amazing work of craft, but in the live setting, but represents the distinction between Flansburgh and Linnell as kids’ musicians and their other efforts. The moon rose during “Fingertips,” even higher into the sky as we listened to the fragmentary and episodic work they had been playing for years. Last year at Bonnaroo, their latest merchandise was “Here Comes Science,” the third in their triology of Grammy-winning educative children’s albums. With “Join Us,” and with this extensive fall tour, They Might Be Giants have returned as an adult band, one that drew out young and hipsters, who seek an experience beyond music, but to participate and interact with others on a human (or ape-like) level, to see puppets projected onto the wall of a tent and to follow someone’s flying fingers through a guitar solo. The full moon lit the highway on the journey home-- let it be known there are many, many roads around Vermont that are as passable as ever, huge swaths of the state that saw only rain and wind, and suffered no damage—and the sky held clouds that played like musicians and made patterns with the reflected light. The deep shades of mountains, the illuminated valleys below, still full of homes and people and roads and lives. “Join Us,” as the recent album title beckons. Flans made mention that they had played in Vermont before, “but they weren’t giving it their all then,” he said with a laugh. Any venue located in a tent is preferable to the cavern that is Higher Ground, in my estimation. Before that South Burlington show a few years ago, I had caught the Giants during a far different and more innocent time: November 3, 2001 at the Pickle Barrel in Killington, just weeks after the events of September 11th. On this moonlight night almost ten years later, and on the anniversary of the Twin Towers’ fall, the Giants stepped up to an enormous plate and delivered, a night of recklessly loud and thrashing rock music, of simple and artistic happening, and of puppetry—some of humanity’s oldest responses to tragedy and loss.
For maniacal fans, a setlist I was given by a guitar tech is transcribed below.
Intro<-full please
guitar/when die/withred/racist/ana
dudes dump/bird/clap/battle
cloisonné
crazy—camera!
spoiler
free ride/celebration
particle/dr worm/prob
_____________
alphabet
careful/judy
can’t
meso/Istanbul
____________
lie
fingertips
dead [ANA crossed out]
__________
damn
But a new and bright and completely full moon rose between the tall pines, out beyond the twilight glimmer of the Subaru dealership: I had been looking forward to the reappearance of the moon, the progression of its phases as not a metaphor but some true sense of ritual and renewal: and while the moonlight would reflect for the first time upon so much rubble in so many brooks, creeks, and streams, new and sad reflected light on the banks, where the water receded and left behind chunks of others’ lives, the white plastic-canvas of the performance tent began its smooth glow in the full moon’s shine. The last of summer had been furiously swept away, and the cool breeze that whispered outside the tent reminded one of fall—was itself the very reason the leaves on the trees were beginning their own seasonal ritual of transformation, bursting forth from the solid idle green into varying stages of drying, turning tan. The tent was big enough for the crowd; there couldn’t have been more than five-hundred of us, mostly sprawled across blankets and in low-slung foldable chairs, taking in the sunset, moonlight, music, and beer (coolers permitted). The lot was perhaps five acres of cleared, gently sloping land, and John Flansburgh described it best later in the night, when he and Linnell donned their handpuppets from a corner of the spacious tent, backed against a wall with faux windows of translucent plastic: “this is the best wedding reception I’ve ever been to!” the puppet exclaimed, its image projected tall onto the sloped ceiling of the tent through a projector. If John Linnell has always had his keyboard from which to stand, stoic and confirmed in the center of the stage, Professor Flans is interested in moving around the stage more than ever: and this is not specifically so he can perform massive Who-like arm revolutions, hammering out the thrash of syncopation and harmony, but so he can really Do Whatever He Wants. John Flansburgh, looking like a Beat poet in a light blue searsucker jacket, droopy mustache and unshaven black facial hair, and translucent sneaker, played his electric guitar wirelessly, roaming around like never before: he sang a song from far backstage, behind Marty’s see-thru kit; jumped forward and backward through choruses and riffs; dualed with Dan Miller on a number of occasions, and almost knocked necks with the bass. Flans had a far-off gaze behind his spectacles, and behaved unpredicatably. He tapped the mic as part of the opener, “The Guitar,” before taking a truly weird and especially-distorted crunch-rock chord solo—was he digging how his tweed amp sounded, its small speaker reverberant in the tiny tent? It got wild quick; never too quick at a They Might Be Giants show. “When Will You Die,” the next tune, taken from the new album, brought on the video feed: to this song, different weapons of destruction—a knife, a gun, a fist—flashed as Linnell wailed and the moon rose. The crowd had pressed forward; Flans warned the crowd between tunes, among much witty banter: “if anyone touches the stage, the show is over.” “Withered Hope” continued Flans’ madness, as horn parts were replaced by the heavy chunkiness of the electric guitar: the band became thunderous as they heard each other, warmed up and functioning as a unit through the raspy melodrama that was Linnell’s singing. In “Your Racist Friend,” a live favorite of mine for its provocative and uncomfortable nature and funk, Dan Miller took a solo on his electric that involved one of the oddest, harmonized solos I’ve ever heard: it was both an act of technical proficiency and instrumental know-how. It was amazing, one of the few Dan Miller highlights from this Giants show; he’s always been a bit expressionless, but seemed more of a distant character on this gig than others I’ve seen.
Regardless of how Dan Miller or anybody else feels about it, they and the crowd will always be at the mercy of John and John’s antics and whims: “Clap Your Hands,” a long-played kids’ song that the Giants use to engage the crowd, now involved a tight electronic clave fill, some noodling and further electric guitar thrash from Flans, and a building up of steam. The crowd—ranging from young families to dozens of children, with and without earplugs—stomped, clapped, and jumped as they were told, and the tent raged. What happened next may have been a new invention of this tour: a virtual and musical battle between the Apes and the People. The crowd was divided, and the chanting of each side of us in the tent was to be along with either John and John, or Marty, Dan, and Dan: after setting it up, explaining it to the crowd not more than once, Flans appeared giggly: and it did work too well. The lights flashed and we threw our fists in the air; Flans had said repeatedly, “get ready for some beautiful music.” It was strange and out of tune and out of sorts; it was a psychedelic event. Dan Miller picked at his guitar strings with his teeth; Linnell wailed on his accordion. The sixteen-bar jams from each band were each epic in their gratiuitous rock parody; it was a battle. “The people win,” announced Flans in stoic monotone. The crowd, Apes included, roared, so much so that the band was startled, unsure of how to calm down enough to play the next, far more serious and sensitive tune from the new album: “Cloisonne.” It is a Flans original, and was this night a fine display of the Giants’ latest songwriting and music theory, as well as their diligence and practice in rebuilding studio-based originals in a live-band setting. Marty moved to the keys; John Linnell played what Flans called the “bass saxophone,” brought out the punchy notes that held together Flansburgh’s achingly-sweet melodies: amongst other nonsense, the live performance of lyrics such as “you’ve got a friend in law enforcement/don’t go calling law enforcement” was weirdly tender. These words may stand for other things to us, the audience, than what they mean to their author. The Giants aren’t self-effacing; they are gracious professionals on tour and on stage, respectful of themselves and each other and their audience. Though I’m guessing Flans made an Elvis-like dash for the bus shortly following the tour, as their merchandise table featured autographed copies of the new album in CD ($15) and vinyl ($20), not to mention an enormous white poster featuring the giant pink hearse ($25). Flans showed off the gatefold vinyl to the crowd at one point, and made some faint allusion to being with the ‘in crowd,’ “especially in Vermont.” There was much interaction with the crowd, eye contact and laughter: this was not John and John’s first pseudo-wedding reception, but it was likely the first time Flansburgh, during the projected-puppet segment, got goofy and forced his hand puppet’s eye into the camera as he bellowed into a microphone, “are you uncomfortable yet?” They were having fun, hiding behind a kick drum that served as the video camera’s stand. The puppets were given a “Free Ride” intro and outro by the band—quite a kickin’ and brief jam—and John and John sang (as the projected puppets) a song I didn’t recognize, and is labeled “crazy” on the setlist (NOT the Patsy Cline number, Black Sabbath, or any other cover). The puppet thing was pretty funny and inventive; they used the trading-off nature of the song’s vocal lines to give a reason for each puppet to fill the frame. Back in the instrumental saddles, they played “Celebration”—a strange new (?) song, before a set of hits old and new: “Particle Man,” “Dr. Worm,” and “You Probably Get That A Lot,” the latter being from the new album. Dan Miller took another interesting solo in “Particle Man,” but otherwise remained in the background, to the foreground of Flans’ bouncing around the room and Linnell’s gaping mouth bent towards the mic, his hands like paws, clamoring at the keys. Dan played keys during “Dr. Worm” while Linnell played accordion; Flans stood idle by the drumset, appeared to be taking a moment to recharge. “You Probably…” featured Linnell singing alone, and not playing anything, as Dan Miller played the keys, and everybody kept it cool through the inventive triplets and cascading beats. Later, Dan Miller took a nominally-thrashing solo on the acoustic guitar, though his spotlight moment before “Istanbul” seemed short and rushed: there had been a War between Apes and People, and there was little space left for instrumental contemplation. The set ended, and the first encore began with the night’s choicest moment: Linnell and Flansburgh, on sax and stylophone respectively, performed “Lie Still, Little Bottle.” Linnell kept the melodic pattern afloat as Flans tinkered with the small electronic device and its wired pen (it too had a wireless transceiver in it, so it was cordless and self-contained). Marty was present for the song’s few drum hits; otherwise, Flans’ snapping and idiomatic cool-jazz vocal made perfect sense. This is the 21st century arts scene, as much as any other: the self-contained band in a self-contained bus, bringing along with them a host of lights, equipment, and ideas. The night rambled on, through their back and front catalog: “Judy is Your Vietnam” and “Careful What You Pack” were not in the set to be crowd-pleasers, but statements from two men whose lives have been spent thinking of ways to express themselves. Neither song is an especially amazing work of craft, but in the live setting, but represents the distinction between Flansburgh and Linnell as kids’ musicians and their other efforts. The moon rose during “Fingertips,” even higher into the sky as we listened to the fragmentary and episodic work they had been playing for years. Last year at Bonnaroo, their latest merchandise was “Here Comes Science,” the third in their triology of Grammy-winning educative children’s albums. With “Join Us,” and with this extensive fall tour, They Might Be Giants have returned as an adult band, one that drew out young and hipsters, who seek an experience beyond music, but to participate and interact with others on a human (or ape-like) level, to see puppets projected onto the wall of a tent and to follow someone’s flying fingers through a guitar solo. The full moon lit the highway on the journey home-- let it be known there are many, many roads around Vermont that are as passable as ever, huge swaths of the state that saw only rain and wind, and suffered no damage—and the sky held clouds that played like musicians and made patterns with the reflected light. The deep shades of mountains, the illuminated valleys below, still full of homes and people and roads and lives. “Join Us,” as the recent album title beckons. Flans made mention that they had played in Vermont before, “but they weren’t giving it their all then,” he said with a laugh. Any venue located in a tent is preferable to the cavern that is Higher Ground, in my estimation. Before that South Burlington show a few years ago, I had caught the Giants during a far different and more innocent time: November 3, 2001 at the Pickle Barrel in Killington, just weeks after the events of September 11th. On this moonlight night almost ten years later, and on the anniversary of the Twin Towers’ fall, the Giants stepped up to an enormous plate and delivered, a night of recklessly loud and thrashing rock music, of simple and artistic happening, and of puppetry—some of humanity’s oldest responses to tragedy and loss.
For maniacal fans, a setlist I was given by a guitar tech is transcribed below.
Intro<-full please
guitar/when die/withred/racist/ana
dudes dump/bird/clap/battle
cloisonné
crazy—camera!
spoiler
free ride/celebration
particle/dr worm/prob
_____________
alphabet
careful/judy
can’t
meso/Istanbul
____________
lie
fingertips
dead [ANA crossed out]
__________
damn
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