Suck It, Quebec: A "review" of Last Night's They Might Be Giants Concert at The Odeon

I haven't completely given up on the Dvorak keyboard test. After downloading and running DVAssist on every Windows machine I use, I have the option to switch back and forth between Dvorak and QWERTY pretty easily. I usually keep it in "Q", if you know what I mean. I am still using the physical Dvorak keyboard itself, though. I like logic and reason, so it tickles me pink that I can type in QWERTY on a Dvorak board, and the key assignments are all wrong[1]! Hahaha! Get me: it's like I'm writing in a secret code over here!

Last night was the They Might Be Giants concert. Good stuff. I think they're contractually obligated to play a healthy mix of songs from their career, spanning now twenty-odd years (Very odd). In contrast, other old bands will tend to just play their standards and then a couple of songs off their new album if they have one. Since They Might Be Giants have released something like two or three albums since last year, they have a big source from which to pull their new material. Last night, They Might Be Giants started off[2] with "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)", and then went off in a couple of different directions. There was new stuff, there was old stuff, and there was patter, wherein the tall, sometimes-creepy John Linnell confessed that he fucked up a line of "Experimental Film" because he was preoccupied with thinking that he looked like, and I quote, "a weird idiot".

I won't subject you to my tirade on what stereotypical They Might Be Giants fans are like, so here's someone else's. Let's just say that if you were at a TMBG concert, you'd be surrounded by a mix of people who a) smell kind of strange, b) don't date much, and can either c) fix your computer or d) tell you about how hard it is to write term papers for Mrs. Glickman's history class. TMBG fans are just plain weird in that "I have an undiagnosed mental condition" kind of way. The great thing about this melting pot of weird is that everybody has a different undiagnosed mental condition, so they usually even out. Usually. Last night we were sandwiched between two groups of girls. One group decided that they could profess their undying love for the band by shouting out every single word of every single song they played, sometimes louder than the actual singers on stage with the microphones in front of them. The other group consisted of one woman who decided that she could profess her undying love for the band by screaming, uncontrollably, for about two hours.

So like I said. TMBG fans are just plain weird. You don't usually see women screaming like banshees and jumping around in the presence of two 40 year old men, one wearing an accordion. Usually.

In all, it was an entertaining concert, but there has been a definite evolution of their live show compared to just a couple years ago. Last night lacked a Spin the Dial or an extended drum solo (most probably because drummer Dan Hickey was absent), but instead consisted of some significantly expanded attention paid to kick-ass guitarist Dan Miller. Back in 2001, Dan Miller was basically "the exceedingly talented backup guy for John Flansburgh", and now he is demonstrating that he's assuming more and more responsibility in the group. If such a thing were possible, it wouldn't be long before he becomes "the third Might Be Giant".

[1] Comparatively between QWERTY and Dvorak, the 'A' and 'M' keys do not change.

[2] Technically, they started off with "Los Angeles" since they first took the stage to play a selection of their 2004 Venue Songs. They played about seven of these songs, then left for a few minutes before starting the real show.