Thanks to a friend who couldn't use them, I scored They Might Be Giants tickets to replace the broken Valentines gift that I originally bought for Kelly. We took in the show last night with two other friends who happened to be going, Nathan and Raquel, and it was a great time. Most of my concerts have been metal, so I'm used to screaming and head-banging, and I didn't exactly know how to get into the music, especially since I was the least familiar with the TMBG catalog. But I expected a tame show and the band surprised me by being really energetic and crazy, and really getting the audience riled up. This was a rocking and rollicking show. It was also the first show of their new tour, so we got to hear a few songs played live for the first time. I couldn't tell the kids songs from the adult songs, or the covers from the originals, without being told, which I guess is a compliment to how well they own their aesthetic. I could have done without my least favorite part of any concert, going through the motions of cheering for two encores as if they weren't part of the show, but all three "endings" were big productions that I was glad to see. It's been twenty years since I considered myself a TMBG fan, but today I am a fan all over again.


Two Replies to Gigantism

Steve Dunn | February 28, 2010
YES! I have tickets to their show in Charlotte in a couple weeks, so I'm glad to hear it's a good one.

Amy Austin | February 28, 2010
Glad to hear they haven't "mellowed" in their older age... lol... 'cuz I'm seeing 'em in Orlando tomorrow! (And I'm a little jealous about not having seen them last in Tampa night, but still psyched nonetheless...)

In fact, I did get to see a show twenty years ago right here at UF's Reitz Union Ballroom -- up close and personal! Don't know if UF is still procuring anybody so awesome these days (some other shows I saw here (for free!) in the early 90s include Concrete Blonde, The Smithereens and Midnight Oil -- all fantastic!!!), but it's pretty hard to top TMBG, in my opinion. Might be hard to imagine rockin' out to a tuba and an accordion, but if this show is anything like the one I saw in 1990, then I could have told you to expect some crazy high energy and an awesome performance!!!

Woot!!!


Logical Operator

The creator of Funeratic, Scott Hardie, blogs about running this site, losing weight, and other passions including his wife Kelly, his friends, movies, gaming, and Florida. Read more »

Windbag

I don't know what Polaroids he has of whom, but somehow Tom Skilling has elevated himself to some kind of all-important weather-broadcasting god. When I grew up in Chicago, I watched him gradually get a bigger and bigger budget for his animated graphics, and gradually get a larger and larger timeframe to deliver his dull reports. By the time I left town, he had a whole 20 minutes of the hour-long midday newscast for the fucking weather, and boy did he find trivia to fill it: Average dew points across Cook County on this day in 1854, theta-e temperature predictions for every Cubs home game next season, you name it. Go »

A Pet Peeve That's Actually About My Pet

How come I can't get through the grocery checkout lane without the clerk or the bagger commenting about how many cans of cat food I buy, which inevitably leads to questions about how many cats I own, how much I feed them, and why I need so many cans? Has nobody in this state heard of stocking up? For their information, I have one cat who eats two 3-oz cans of food a day, which is more than a typical cat but not unheard-of. Go »

Retrospection

If I recall the dates correctly, yesterday would have been my grandmother's 100th birthday. She lived to just shy of her 89th, despite a lifetime of chain smoking. I remember her as a sweet, generous woman who liked to laugh and teach me life's simple pleasures; a typical afternoon for us was playing crazy eights and baking cinnamon rolls. Go »

Ten Things I Learned While Kelly's Parents Pat & Russ Spent a Week Visiting Us

• Florida reminds me of Dave Barry's quip that vacationing in Britain is great because you meet people from entirely different states. We stopped a woman to take our picture; she was visiting from New Jersey and her daughter beside her was from California. The only local we met warned us what bridge not to jump off for swimming because the water is shark-infested. Go »

Ten Best of 2006

The feature is done. It was frustrating not being able to see more movies this year, and the brevity of the feature reflects that. Comments about the list, or mentions of your own favorite films last year, are welcome in the replies to this post. Go »

Twit

Have you heard of Twitter? It's this great new web site where you report to your friends exactly what you're doing at that moment in time. Neat stuff! Go »