| "Children's songs. That will FUCK. YOU. UP." |
[Jul. 23rd, 2005|06:03 pm] |
| [ | Spirits |
| |  satisfied | ] |
| [ | Voices |
| | They Might Be Giants - Bastard Wants to Hit Me | ] |
PICTURES!
http://flickr.com/photos/joyuna/sets/633434/
Lots of pictures. 42 pictures, incidentally.
For those who've not been paying attention: Last night my sister Paula and I (along with my dad, who drove but didn't see the show) went down to Louisville to Lebowskifest, a convention-type thing for the cult film The Big Lebowski. Why would we do this, you ask? Well, They Might Be Giants was playing there, and seeing how the frequency of such a thing occuring within driving distance of us is roughly once every 24 years, I was bursting to go. So we did! Lovely when things work out like that.
We left at around 4:30 and drove. And drove. We drove for quite some time... Yech. In fact, we got to Louisville just in time for us to get lost, and we wound up in line 10 minutes past 7. This all worked out just fine for us though, because no matter how late we were, the event was even later.
The gate opened at maybe 7:15. We waved Dad goodbye... He apparently was reading Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince the entire time we were there.
Paula and I got in and we found the ampitheatre (...that is way too cool of a word.). There was a large, grassy hill with stone benches set out in rows, and at the bottom of the hill was a grassy area and the stage. We sat at a bench in the first row and waited.
A very substantial part of our time was waiting. Long story short, everything was more than an hour behind schedule and Corn Mo came on past 8:00.
Corn Mo, TMBG's opening act, is someone whom I knew nothing about except that he played the accordion, and accordions are always cool. He was all right, and pretty funny, but not much to write home about music-wise. Paula didn't care for him at all.
We waited some more and sat in the grass after Corn Mo. Somehow, soon, everyone in the grass stood up at the same time. There was no announcement or unusual activity that I could discern, we all just kind of did it. Sure enough, the Giants hit the stage soon after.
...Do I even need to say that it was fucking awesome? I mean, seriously.
They started with the "They Might Be Giants National Anthem", Clap Your Hands. A pretty unmemorable song, if you ask me, but I suppose it's good for getting the energy going and audience participation is always fun. Also, during this song Flans did a bit from some line-dancing song whose name escapes me but it always played at lame dance events - "Everybody clap your hands! *clapclap clapclap clapclap clapclap*". If anyone could tell me what this song was, I'd be able to rest easy at night.
From there they went straight into Istanbul, and then Damn Good Times, which is a damn good song which I wish I knew well enough to sing along to. I sang along to absolutely everything I could.
Concert atmosphere is like nothing you can experience anywhere else. Hundreds and hundreds of strangers all around you singing and dancing and screaming and having just as great of a time as you are, with a band in front having an equally great time.
They played Alphabet of Nations, which pleased me to no end. I was one of the only people who sang along. ;D I always kept getting stuck on NORWAY. Fucking Norway.
They played most of their popular songs, but there were enough other songs thrown in the mix to make it feel not like it was just some greatest hits compilation. Interesting one song that they didn't play - Boss of Me! They've played a short version of it at most of their recent shows, but not this time.
In between songs, they gave a warning to those who had flown in from out of town - Louisville Slugger bats are not suitable carryon luggage at airports. XD
During The Guitar (replacing "Jim" with "Dan", of course), Flans told everyone to conga (including and specifically shy people). Several conga lines formed and I got thrown into one as they segued into an awesome song that I wasn't expecting, No One Knows My Plan. As the line disbanded, I actually got a better position to the stage than I had before -- Originally I was on the far left three people back, and I ended up two back and in the center. Rawk.
Through the entire show, I was obviously taking pictures. My camera SUCKS and told me that its batteries were dead like two songs in to the show. "Yeah right," I said, and turned it back on and it stayed on for long enough to take a pic or two and then turned itself off again. It was annoying as hell but at least it did work. And I got some pictures, regardless of how crappy they turned out.
During Ana Ng, someone was shooting off fireworks in the park. I have no idea why. So...
"When I was driving once, I saw this painted on a bridge -- Fireworks!
I don't want the world, I just want your half -- Fireworks!"
...it was quite funny at the time. I had no idea what was going on.
"Don't be afraid of the gunshots. We're from New York, we're used to it."
They fit as much awesomeness as they absolutely could into the show. Polk, The Sun, Experimental Film, She's an Angel, Bastard Wants to Hit Me, FINGERTIPS!
Fingertips seems to me like it would be one of those songs that sounds perfectly brilliant on the album, but wouldn't work out live (See: Weird Al, "Albuquerque")-- It's 20-some song hooks, all smushed together with an amalgam of different styles, voices and instruments. They did it though, and they did it awesomely. It is the PERFECT song to end a show with, right after Corn Mo came out and they did Hocus Pocus. It was all just really wonderful.
I got an orange They Might Be Giants ringer tee with the Snowman on it. I dare you to find a cooler t-shirt than that.
So I was sweaty, tired and dehydrated and had a 2 hour+ car trip ahead of me home, but holy crap did I ever have a blast. The end.
"We've never played in 100% humidity before."
And to close, I leave ye with my favourite quote ever:
~"Dan Miller has his foot placed firmly on the wah-wah pedal, ladies and gentlemen. You know what that means: Children's songs that will fuck you up. Let me say that again: Children's songs that will FUCK. YOU. UP." |
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bouncy
devious
restless
artistic
ecstatic
nostalgic
sleepy
bored
awake
amused
