dr4b | How do you spell TLA?

Half a damn lifetime later, I find myself going to a They Might Be Giants concert at the Theater of the Living Arts in Philadelphia for New Year's Eve. (The last time I did that was December 31 1992, and at the time I wasn't old enough to go to the 11pm show, so this time I made up for that.) It's funny how so many things have changed and yet stayed the same since then.

darknote picked me up around 8pm and we headed down to South Philly, where we attempted to get a cheesesteak at Pat's and failed because they were closed, and instead ended up at Geno's, which was lit up like a freaking casino or something. Geno's has no indoor seating, of course, so we got our cheesesteaks and ate them in the car, then went to park nearer South Street. (Jim's, by the way, was closed.)

It was really bloody cold out, so we first ducked into Starbucks, which didn't have upstairs seating for whatever stupid reason, so... we ended up at the South Street Diner instead! Which is really funny because I remember being at the South Street Diner before seeing TMBG another time, and literally running into John and John going down South Street. I think it's quite possible that was even the New Year's 1992 show, though my memory might just be munging together and it might have actually been that time in late 1997 when I roadtripped here from CMU with

zaph and

gothfru and

fraterrisus and

shoebox_bird and

wandelrust and... someone else? for a TMBG show.

After hanging out at the diner talking for a few hours -- and let me say that catching up with Mendel was fantastic and I'm really happy we got to -- we went over to the TLA and saw the concert. Aside from the fact that there were tall dudes in front of me for half the show, and also a rather smelly person somewhere nearby, it wasn't so bad. The place wasn't packed, so it wasn't quite the sweaty horrible mess I remember from going to shows at the TLA when I was in high school. There was a rather large contingent of very drunk people, which isn't unexpected, and there was also a group of people blowing New Year's noisemakers which sounded like very bad horns. Sometimes it was funny, sometimes it wasn't.

John and John were their usual amusing selves, and I actually very very very much enjoyed the show. Every time I'm skeptical that I don't want to see TMBG, I go to a show again and remember how much they kick ass. Seriously, it's a little hard to believe they're both pushing 50 years old -- WTF? Either way, the great thing is, they haven't changed. And I could still stare at John Linnell for hours given the opportunity. It is kind of odd that they have let some people not named John or Dan into the band these days. The horn section was fantastic too -- probably the BEST moment was when the sax-playing dude and Linnell both got out clarinets -- "devil sticks", as Flansburgh called them -- and proceeded to do the clarinet duet to back up "Cowtown". Dang. I'm fairly sure that even though I've been to around 15 TMBG concerts in my life, they played SEVERAL songs tonight that I had never heard live before:

Hey Mr. DJ, I Thought You Said We Had a Deal
S-E-X-X-Y
Particle Man
(Midnight - New Year's!)
Auld Lang Syne
Drink
Wicked Little Critter
Damn Good Times
Dead
The Guitar
Clap Your Hands
Withered Hope
The Sun is a Mass of Incandescent Gas
(Science Project new album plug)
The Sun is a Miasma of Incandescent Plasma
She's An Angel
Dr. Worm
Mr. Me
Asbury Park
Birdhouse in Your Soul
Cowtown
New York City
Ana Ng
Older
The Mesopotamians
Fingertips
----------
TLA
James K. Polk
TLA (part 2, band introductions)
Istanbul Not Constantinople
==========
Alphabet of Nations

I will say that they really SHOULD have quit while they were ahead in this case. The Alphabet of Nations was a total letdown after Istanbul.

I wanted to hear End of the Tour or Pet Name, which are actually probably my favorite two TMBG songs, but the fact that they played Mr. Me, Cowtown, Dead, and Hey Mr. DJ were pretty awesome as far as I'm concerned. And come to think of it I might have cried if they played Pet Name.

Unfortunately, due to the fact that it's just plain REFLEX at this point to jump up and down wildly during so many songs, I kind of totally burned out my calf muscles from bouncing. Owwwwww, do they hurt right now. Ow.

There was a guy standing to my left for the first half of the concert holding a Hardball Times 2009 Annual, writing the setlist as well, singing along to all the songs. I have this vague idea that I might actually know him, but he was gone by the time the show ended. Oops. I guess I have a feeling there MUST have been some people I know in the audience there, but I didn't really look around too much.

I took a few videos, too.

Here's the actual midnight moment, when they did a countdown, launched balloons, and sang "Auld Lang Syne".

And here, uh... so after New York City they were having a funny dialogue about spontaneous egotistical keyboard solos, when a chick in the audience told them to "PLAY A FUCKING SONG!" Hilarity (and Ana Ng) ensued:

Oh, and before the concert I saw a t-shirt they were selling that actually said, in Japanese, ゼイマイ大作戦, which means, er... well, I assume "zeimai" is an abbreviation for "they might", and daisakusen is kind of like a "giant plan". I can't find a photo on their site but it's the squid shirt here. I actually ASKED the merch table people about it and they were like "uh... we have no fucking clue. what does it say anyway?" Kind of odd. No, I didn't bother buying it.

(As another aside, I was wearing my Nandeyanen 82 t-shirt... I realized that the proper thing to wear to TMBG was jeans and a smartass t-shirt, but since I didn't bring any smartass t-shirts with me here, the closest I had was a Japanese baseball heckling t-shirt.)

Yeah, so, good times. Mendel gave me a ride home because he's awesome and it was freezing out, and now I'm here wrestling with youtube and such. I should sleep I suppose, but I don't feel tired...

Happy new year?

How do you spell TLA?

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