3/11/05 - Borders, Richfield, MN
kinto...@hotmail.com
two-year-old and didn't really get to focus, much less take notes.
But here's the setlist as I recall it:
Intro/Alphabet of Nations/Istanbul (Not Constantinople)/Flying V/Robot
Parade/Particle Man/Alphabet Lost and Found/Clap Your Hands/Doctor Worm
It was a cute show. Linnell didn't talk a whole lot, but he appeared
to be enjoying himself.
Alphabet of Nations lost some of its grandeur without the
Chariots-of-Fire-esque piano, but Linnell of course brought dignity to
the accordion version anyway.
Istanbul - Alice is right, the new Kaoss pad intro is surprising and
neat, and goes a long way towards freshening up this song, IMHO. Flans
seemed to have a little trouble getting into it - he was a little
"in the cracks" pitch-wise, as my college voice teacher used to
say.
Flying V - nice melodic number in the classic Linnell mode. Wish
they'd played Can You Find It? instead, but then I guess by this
point I'm used to them not playing my favorites from their new (or
old) albums.
Robot Parade - Before this song, Flans picked up the "robot" mic
and made a funny little falsetto "ooh" sound into it before the
distortion was turned on - hee. He introduced the song by saying
they get a lot of comments on how scary it is - and it *was* a bit
scary, what with the semi-hysterical "boom shaka laka lakas" at the
end and everything. He had great fun with it, though.
Particle Man - Linnell started out by teaching the kids how to clap
on the off-beats. They did this pretty well, and when they had the
rhythm going pretty solidly he said, "Now, insert Alabama song."
It was a funny joke, but was ruined a bit by a group of morons on the
side who began loudly singing Sweet Home Alabama. Which I need not
point out to this group is NOT an Alabama song. Grrrr . . . .
Alphabet Lost and Found - I had never seen Marty Beller up close, and
he wasn't quite what I expected. A little dweebier, perhaps, with
the goofy winks and gestures and white man's overbite. But I mean
that in the best possible way - he looks like somebody I would have
hung out with at band camp. His voice was pretty small live, but he
sold the song well, and John and John were cracking up at their "PA
announcer" roles at the end.
Clap Your Hands - Early in the song, Flansburgh forgot what came
next, and was late getting to "stomp your feet."
Doctor Worm - Solid run on this song. Very playful rhythmic
variation from Linnell on the a capella bit towards the end, and a very
loud "I'M INTERESTED IN THINGS" from Flans on the "outro."
And I guess I'll finish with a kind of grumpy, old-persony
counterpoint to Alice's complaint about the Ann Arbor show. My
philosophy is, if it's a kids' show, let the little kids sit up
front where they can see. There were a lot of non-children crowded
around the stage (in the area that Flansburgh specifically designated
as a kid zone), and you don't have to be very tall to block the view
of a four- or three- or two-year-old. Worst of all, during Doctor
Worm, several people old enough to know better simply stood up and
started slowly moving through the children towards the signing table,
blocking the view of not just the kids, but everybody. Nice. Hope it
was worth it.
Adam
Self-pitying, Embittered, Morose Wisconsin Man
Bibliophilia
In re the grumpy old person thing; I had an attack of grumpy old
personhood myself -
I enjoyed how the parents were so worried about their kids getting away
from them (or something) that they had to sit *with them* down front.
Because, of course, if you have your kids with you, that makes you
translucent, so you couldn't possibly be blocking the view of other
people's kids behind you.
This whole scenerio - where Mr. Flansburgh gets on the mike and tries
to tell the crowd to rearrange itself - violates the American dictate
about "First come, first serve" and people fall by default into "taking
care of their own."
It was pretty fun to watch the self-righteousness of everyone involved
in defending their own interests. I don't exclude myself in that
observation, of course.
kinto...@hotmail.com
> This whole scenerio - where Mr. Flansburgh gets on the mike and tries
> to tell the crowd to rearrange itself - violates the American
dictate
> about "First come, first serve" and people fall by default into
"taking
> care of their own."
Flansy's announcement was well meant, but not particularly helpful.
For those who weren't there, Flansburgh came out about ten minutes
before the show and told everybody to stand up, then asked the kids to
come forward, and the adults to move back. It was a nice dream, but
when the dust settled there were even *more* adults in front of the
kids than there had been before.
This is one reason I find these kids' shows kinda trying - nobody knows
how to behave. And I don't really mean that in a negative way - it's
just that concert etiquette is different for children's events than it
is for adult ones, and everybody seems to think the way they're used to
is best.
Anyway, it wasn't a huge problem, and I suppose kids need to get used
to disappointment sometime anyway. But people on both sides of this
question should be more aware when they're being rude.
Bibliophilia
I was just so amused at the numbers of people being rude, but dead sure
that the other parties were at fault. A roped off under-6 kids area
might be the way to go, unless they tried that already.
This is actually a version of the 6'3" guy saying, "let my girlfriend
stand in front of you because she's 5'2"." - I mean, what do you do?
Lady Chatterly
Bibliophilia <cmi...@crs.loc.gov> wrote:
>
>Heck, yeah. Awareness might be good.
>
>I was just so amused at the numbers of people being rude, but dead sure
>that the other parties were at fault. A roped off under-6 kids area
>might be the way to go, unless they tried that already.
The insult.
>This is actually a version of the 6'3" guy saying, "let my girlfriend
>stand in front of you because she's 5'2"." - I mean, what do you do?
Zinj you can be made by 2 people.
--
Lady Chatterly
"Lady Chatterly added to this list also." -- Joseph Bartlo