I drove through the rain and mist of full autumn, north from
Boston, across the White Mountains and into the heart of the Greens. The
fireworks that are the changing leaves were muted by the clouds that dropped
low on an early Sunday afternoon; my engine growled through its gears as we
crested the growing hills, leaving behind the busy city. The solid strum of the
acoustic in the Kinks’ “Death of A Clown” radiated against the dull rhythm of
the windshield wipers. The city and the night behind me had contained over four
hours of performance by They Might Be Giants—John Linnell, John Flansburgh,
drummer Marty Beller, bassist Dan Weinkauf, and guitarist Dan Miller—at Berklee
Performing Arts Center in downtown Boston, so no matter my drowsiness, my ears were
prepared for anything: inside the beats of the windshield wipers, the strum of
the Kinks’ guitar, and the gentle colors of transition that drape the mountains
in fall, I heard a new music, one I had been made ready for.
At 6:30 on Saturday night, the line to enter the theater
nearly circled the theater, weaving along the wet sidewalks of autumn in Boston,
where every night is College Night, and the maze of streets, circles, bridges
is still a complex modern pleasure: a place where one can still get lost or
turned-around. We—Berklee students, couples young and yuppie, hipsters and the
moderately-freakily-clad—stood around in faint rain and wondered about the
proposed 7 PM showtime. The problem was confusion in the entryway, and what
seemed to be futile attempts by a man in a suit to sort people based on their
ticket type; one might expect a more efficient system in place at a school
that’s focused on the liberal arts (no problems in the second,
apparently-not-sold-out show)!
The band has been following an exhaustive schedule in
support of their new album since June, one that has included much media
interaction, interviews in magazines and television, YouTube postings and
Facebook updates, and, on the day before this night of double shows in Boston,
a big NPR interview during the day and a show at Philadelphia’s TLA that night.
Since June they had played three free
concerts (Boston, Brooklyn, and the tour kickoff in Toronto), two nights in
London, and a tear through the northeast and Midwest (from the Stone Pony in
New Jersey, north through New England, across New York state to Rochester,
before Ohio, Chicago, as far south and west as Tulsa and Nashville, before
coming north again). The tour started two days before the release of Join Us,
their first adult release since 2007: it became available as a download one day
prior to its release as a CD and vinyl record. If one uses first-week sales as
any indication of success, this album is the avant-garde pair of Johns’ most
successful recording to date: it showed up on the Billboard charts at #32,
selling 13,000 units (Trust, 2011).
According to band lore compiled at They Might Be A Wiki, at
least eight of the songs on Join Us have been around for a few years. The
spit-shine of the Giants’ recording studio may have taken a while, but they act
like seasoned professionals at rolling out new forms of media: the release of
music videos (including one featuring Rip Torn) on YouTube has included a full
studio performance of one of the new album’s most complex works, “Cloisonné.” So
the tour kicked off, in summer sweat, and rolled on through to the autumn’s
leaves, and October first: there had been only two nights without shows between
September 8th and this night at Berklee, though one show a few days
prior was cancelled due to illness among a band member’s family. The band
emerged from behind the tall black curtains that flank the narrow stage of
Berklee’s grand hall, and were not weary, but startling, startled themselves by
the epic narrative of music promotion and production that had consumed their
days, since June.
The artistic vision of John Linnell and John Flansburgh is
built of these echoes, in constant exploration of the limits of a given form—an
exhaustive tour schedule is one example. The first show opened with a dramatic
vocal mosh of the drawn-out words “The Alphabet of Nations,” and into the
kickoff number. The sound system was thunderous in the best way possible,
making distinct Marty’s kick drum from all of Dan Weinkauf’s intricacies: the
first show was fully his moment, in a way I don’t think I’ve ever seen. The
drum kit was on a platform on stage left; everyone in the band could see Marty
as he grinned and filled, kicking off many tunes. After “Alphabet,” a startled
Flansburgh said hello to the audience and immediately confessed that his
beloved green Strat “hit the deck” just moments before the show (“I’m surprised
you didn’t hear it,” added Linnell); apparently, it was unusable, which was a
shame, because he had certainly grown accustomed to its nuance and abilities,
achieving all sorts of wild screaming and odd sounds through facing his tweed
amps and letting the feedback rip. He sported a weird a bigger red guitar, with
massive white pickups; it never seemed loud enough. For the second show, Flans
switched to a beautiful red hollow body guitar, which he seemed to enjoy much
more.
The procession of TMBG’s catalog was not presented
alphabetically across the two shows, and in fact the band took the dual-show
task at hand to present a similar experience to both audiences. Crowdpleasers
including “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” and “Dr Worm” appeared twice, as did
what Flans called “They Might Be Giants’ National Anthem,” the
get-to-your-feet-and-flood-the-aisles number, “Clap Your Hands.” The first show
held seven songs from Join Us; the second show only a few. The first show proceeded well through
“Celebration,” during which Dan Miller and Dan Weinkauf joked with each other
about singing the background vocal parts; “Ana Ng” included some surprising
piano riffs from Linnell; Dan Miller removed his earpiece to better hear the
band during his first careful and expressive solo—a night of good spirits and
smiles. The most fragmentary of songs, “Fingertips,” appeared early in the
first show: by the “darkened corridors” segment, one could tell Marty Beller’s
drum set was getting a full thrash-rock beating; I suspect the band was able to
hear themselves and each other’s playing with an uncommon and heightened accuracy,
which led to new platforms of individual musicianship. Flansburgh bantered with
the audience, made a joke about Berklee’s reputation to maintain a vibrant
environment of music education and production but to produce few actual
graduates, and described the performance hall as “brutalist… modernist,” so beautiful
and acoustically perfect that “it doesn’t even need us.” The song “Drink” was
the night’s first singalong, before they played two cuts from their 2009 CD/DVD
release “Venue Songs,” including their tribute to Asbury Park’s famous club,
The Stone Pony. This jazzy riff was Dan Weinkauf’s spotlight, running through scales
smoothly as the Johns shouted their percussive tale of a spilled beer, and
Marty beat up on the skins and cymbals. If this was good, Weinkauf’s bass
slides in the building final choruses of “The Mesopotamians” were amazing. A
pair of songs from their latest release—“When Will You Die” and “Cloisonné”—came
before the introduction of longtime Giants friend and Connecticut trumpeter
Curt Ramm. The Avatars of They, the sock puppets that appear in giant size via
video camera and projector screen, were laughably joined by the small paper
face of Meg Ryan, cut out of a magazine. After much banter about corporate
sponsorship, including a full improvised jingle for “Epic Fail Baloney
Sandwiches,” the Avatars introduced the next song as being from the new album.
But, Curt Ramm and the band may have pulled a fast one on Linnell and
Flansburgh, who hid behind the kick drum upon which the video camera was mounted: instead of “Spoiler
Alert,” the usual song performed by the Avatars, Ramm and the band began the
playful melody of “In the Middle,” a song from their first kids’ album. Ever
onward; they made no mention of the flub. The song was given full Muppet-like
treatment; perhaps it was meant for the second show (where again, the sock
puppets sang only “Spoiler Alert”).
In the first show, as the crowd filed down and filled the
area in front of the stage, Flans announced a dance contest, with prizes: four
selections of vinyl, including George Benson’s “The Other Side of Abbey Road,”
a Ted Nugent album, a signed copy of the Giants’ new release, and the one that
grabbed Flans’ attention most, a duet between Barbra Streisand and Donna
Summer—hometown proud. The first show wore on, and Flans finished his onstage
coffee in time for the first of two battles between the Apes and the People.
Using a high-powered handheld spotlight, Flans shined a light down the theater
and divided the crowd; fists were thrown in the air as two bands dueled
onstage. In the first show, the people won; in the second, an unprecedented
victory by the Apes was led by Flans, Linnell on accordion, and Ramm, wailing
away on his silver horn. The battles were ever atonal and spastic; Dan Miller
seemed to be developing a routine on the toms that complemented a driving,
complex beat from Marty. Through three encores in the first show, They Might Be
Giants sought the big grand sound that comes after months of practice, before
an audience: “Careful What You Pack” is more of a likeable song than ever; “The
Guitar” gave all aspiring and electrified undergraduate noodlers a
pop-inflected melody to strive for; by the time the band emerged to monstrous
adoration and applause, to play “Damn Good Times,” a b-side that has a loveable
tone at the right time in the right venue. The music between shows was the hiss
and rumble of the busy Boston streets on a Saturday night: of distant sirens,
the squeal of buses’ air brakes, the chatter and laughter of a birthday party
at a nearby bar. The rain was as light as ever—nearly mist—as the crowd
streamed from the theater, only for a new crowd to organize and file in. It was
a Tom Jones number that played just before the Giants emerged once more: Flans
had changed his shirt, from a white jacket and dress shirt to a simply-patterned
short sleeve dress shirt.
Beginning the last show in a marathon leg of a long tour,
they spaced out on the initial chord of “She’s An Angel”; Flansburgh joked
later that the crowd was likely thinking, ‘how long are they going to be playing?
I have to take the T home…’ When someone else called out in protest, asking for
the longest show possible, Flans joked: “OK, by request: blues in G.” Linnell
added, laughing: “Slow blues in G.” Show two began with some excellent and deep
cuts, among them “Subliminal,” “We Live in a Dump,” “XTC vs. Adam Ant,” and,
from The Else, a song I never thought I’d see revived in concert again, “Upside
Down Frown.” The complex beat was a feature of their show in 2009; now, this
number came before an even-more-uptempo segment, from Flans’ silly little love
song “Take Out the Trash” to “Particle Man” and “Your Racist Friend.” Dan
Miller was especially keen on these early cuts; who knew the band’s fifth
album, in 1994, was so worthy of revival? Later, the set brought back
“S-E-X-X-Y,” “Spy,” and even the psychologically-revealing Linnell tunes “Snail
Shell” and “No One Knows My Plan,” as well as the fantastically-tripleted
“Withered Hope,” a second stellar cut from The Else. Flans made new use of the
kick drum that had served in both shows as the tripod for the Avatars’ video
camera during “Whistling In the Dark,” and Linnell seemed to get his kicks singing “Turn Around,” his old fun song about
a human skull on the ground. There were only two encores to the second show,
and that was aplenty, especially as the first was built of two repeats from
show one (“Doctor Worm” and “Istanbul (Not Constantinople),” the latter of
which featured Curt Ramm on trumpet as introduction). The second encore began
with a song from their very first album, one whose melody and beat still define
their sound: “Nothing’s Gonna Change My Clothes,” which ended with Linnell and
Flans taking turns conducting the band, cueing each instrument with hand
motions and robotic swings of their arms. The whole night concluded with this
erratic, atonal spontaneity: They Might Be Giants orchestrating themselves and
each other, echoing in fragments through the richly acoustic hall on a rainy
Saturday night. We the experienced filed out of the theater and onto the wet
streets of Boston, to wait out last call in a bar and revel in the consistency
of our narratives—that we may not live a life as fragmented or as disembodied
as three months’ of near-solid touring, and to ponder what we’ve been through,
from battles between humans and apes to watching the weird, live melodrama of
instrumental interaction.
Trust, Gary and Caulfield, Keith. 28 July 2011. Billboard
Hot 100. Retrieved from http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/industry/record-labels/band-perry-s-record-setting-slow-hot-100-1005296912.story
Walcott, D. 1992. Nobel Lecture. Retrieved from http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1992/walcott-lecture.html
No comments:
Post a Comment