They Might Be Giants performed live and free yesterday at Border's Books in San Francisco. A big, happy, all-ages crowd jammed the small space -- clearly more people than were expected. John and John and drummer Marty Beller hit the stage at 4:00 and played for about 40 minutes. We Knasters were right up front, about 10 feet from the tiny stage, and the band sounded great. The set was mostly very tight, except for a few minutes of Flansburgh guitar troubleshooting at the start (Flans: "We'd like to thank Guitar Center for not being open"). After that, the music poured out and soon the happy TMBG vibes were flowing.
They performed four songs from "Here Come the ABC's", the subversively addictive CD/DVD project that's supposed to be for "kids". The show started with a terrific "Alphabet of Nations" that included bonus nation lyrics by Linnell, and drummer Beller stepped to the mike to sing lead on "Alphabet Lost and Found" while John and John sang chorus harmonies a bit off key (big grin from Linnell). A tune that was "written by Linnell's right index finger" proved to be the intro to "Istanbul". They also performed "Robot Parade" and the 21-part classic "Fingertips".
Because the show promoted "Here Come the ABCs", there were plenty of little kids around. One tyke of about 5 wearing a "No!" t-shirt was loudly singing along to "Fake Believe". Linnell teased him by first holding back on his vocal and letting the kid sing, then jumping in fast to preempt the kid.
After the show, They set up a table for autographs and photos (Flans: "We're going to stay here until all of you are gone.") And it was good.
Reminds me when I saw them play a free show at Tower Records in NYC in 1998 (or maybe 1999)... that was a great show!
Posted by: Amber | Monday, March 28, 2005 at 10:20 AM
Hi, Scott -
Good review and pix! I was in the maze at stage right, with a partially obstructed view. It was a great show, and they were really nice about signing stuff afterwards.
Posted by: Jerome | Monday, March 28, 2005 at 03:46 PM
Hi Scott
Great review!
Say, by any chance is there going to be an update, perhaps a PDF, to your great iPod book? It ends with coverage of the 3G iPod so includes no coverage of the great 4G iPods like my iPod Photo. Thanks.
BTW, downloaded the complete 1984 stockholder's meeting from http://www.esm.psu.edu/Faculty/Gray/movies.html (426MB) that Prof. Gray has posted on his Penn State web site along with all the dozens of other cool QT movies he's saved. He naturally gives you a great deal of the credit for saving this valuable record which is unique.
Posted by: SteveoBrien | Monday, March 28, 2005 at 04:52 PM
Comment: Clarification of previous comment......
Was requesting an update to "Hacking the iPod" as it ends with coverage of the 3G ipod (3rd generation) which preceeded the current generation the 4G which includes many new innovations and additions like the iPod Photo and Shuffle.
Posted by: SteveoBrien | Monday, March 28, 2005 at 04:54 PM
No plans for an update right now, but I do add interesting stuff to the blog at hackingipod.com every few days as I come across it. For iPod shuffle stuff in particular, check out my article at .
Is iTunes 4.6 really ancient already? ;-) After all, we're only up to 4.7.1.
Posted by: Scott | Wednesday, March 30, 2005 at 12:44 PM