MELODY PT. 1

There is a band, they are from Brooklyn, and they are called They Might Be Giants.

This is the opener of TMBG's performance at New York's Performance Space 122, played on February 6, 1988. This performance is notable for being really old, having a recording, and being a good time.

It opens with a Frank Sinatra cover, which almost works as a fake-out for what's to come. This is interesting because a lot of the wisdom I have about how live shows work is that, a lot of the time, you play the fast stuff because you're worried you'll lose your audience's attention. In this way, opening with a slow cover is kind of a power move, even though it's not original material.

Flansburgh then immediately sets the tone by wielding a large stick, which he parades around the audience while screaming, and I quote,

THE STICK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He then picks up the tempo by using the stick as a percussion instrument, since they didn't have anyone who could play the drums back then. This is why these writeups are broken into Melody Pt. 1 and Pt. 2, since the distinction between the John duo and the full band stuff is drastic.

The emphasis on audience participation in TMBG's live sets evidently hasn't decreased with time; I'll bring up our experience at a TMBG live show much later into these writeups, but genuinely, asking people to snap on Cage & Aquarium in this set is very reminiscent of stuff they do to date. It's interesting what has and hasn't changed; while this is obviously an old era, and while the band's instrumentation is held back by only having two people and no drum machine, it still holds up to date. The performance on Kiss Me, Son Of God closes out what's ultimately a very short, but very fun, performance.

Also, during Why Does The Sun Shine?, Linnell says hydrogen, nitrogen, estrogen, and wood. Neat.

We then turn to an internal Atlantic cassette of the April 28, 1990 show at Cabaret Metro in Chicago, shortly following the release of Flood. This is a significantly more full-sounding recording than the 1988 one, largely because they brought in the drum machine. I like a lot of the more intense breakdowns that happen live; Your Racist Friend exemplifies this.

The apeshit energy still continues. Lie Still, Little Bottle features some incoherent mumbling instead of the usual horn breakdown, which is great. They even do meta-commentary on the fact that this is being recorded, which is funny because I'm listening to the recording.

I don't have a lot to say about it aside from this: it's an evolved sound, but it's still unevolved. It's still emphasizing audience participation, with people in the background evidently going crazy. This would change when the full band comes in for the John Henry era, starting in 1994.