Touch The Puppet Head

What Was I Thinking?

I really should have followed up on my TMBG teaser before now, but noooo, I just had to post about my gender confused chickens. I guess I wasn't thinking.... Thanks to Babs for reminding me that some people were maybe waiting to hear about the show.

So, was it fun? Hell yeah, it was fun! John and John are so entertaining with their back-and-forth banter and heckling of the crowd! Not at all pretentious, all about showmanship. Very engaging.

And the music! The music was Fan-freakin'-fun-tastic! The "theme" for the show was "We're gonna play a song from every album we ever wrote". Did they? I don't know. But there were a bunch of them and they were all good. Old faves like Birdhouse in My Soul, Istanbul (with a mind-joggling acoustic intro by the Billy Squire of TMBG, Dan Miller. How he did not rip flesh or break a string is beyond me.) Ana Ng, Don't Let's Start, and Fingertips, too! I was thrilled to hear that one. So funny.

In addition to "the oldies", they played some things off of their "children's" (yeah, right) CDs like Robot Parade, and Alphabet of Nations. Oh, and then there was Mesopotamians, Doctor Worm and Sexxy. It really was non-stop hit after mouth-watering hit! They played 2 encores, and if they would have played a third my requests for favorites left out would have been Montana is a Leg and Particle Man. OK, and I would liked to have heard John Lee Supertaster, too. And Where Do They Make Balloons. Sigh.
Maybe next time.

Random notes on the arena...

First Avenue was packed and hot and dark. Just like it ever was. Steve seems to believe it had been given a fresh coat of flat black paint. I somehow doubt that, but am convinced that the ceiling is held up only by archival cigarette smoke. Drinks were expensive but tall and cold. I do not think the young man at the door looked at my ID quite long enough to humor me. I almost handed it back to him and asked "Are you sure?". The crowd really was mostly made up of 30+ fans. We saw plenty of grey hair and male pattern baldness. And overuse of ear plugs.

Glimpses of Soul has posted some fantastic photogs of the show. They really catch the ambiance. The one shot of confetti in the air was during robot parade. For the kid in all of us, I guess! If you look closely and squint real hard, you can almost imagine seeing me and Steve off to the left in that picture. Just outside the frame.

So, there you have it, it was a fun birthday treat for Steve and quite a trip down memory lane to be at First Ave again after so many years. Definitely something we need to go and do more often. More music. More beer. My new motto.