A pleasant evening out on a
school night? Don’t mind if I do, sir. So it was off to The Tivoli (one of my
favourite Brisbane venues) I went to see They Might Be Giants and support act Tempura
Nights. Kicking off with their Sonic Youth-esque stylings, Tempura Nights were
charmingly loose, and despite a distinct lack of real finesse (one guitarist
appeared to be having troubles wringing any kind of diversity out of his
feedback) I was suitably won over by the slacker-like stylings. Older ladies
and gentlemen made up the largest percentage of the audience and there were
some disparaging comments made about Tempura Nights style (something about
hearing this kind of stuff over two decades ago) but as my companion astutely
pointed out, “It’s way better than a lot of the shit that’s out there at the
moment”, and so I give Tempura Nights some hearty applause for their work.
By now it was getting quite
packed and a test-card style back drop indicated that the Giants wouldn’t be
far away; indeed everyone and their grand-dad was here – and oh, my days –
there were even quite a few of those ‘young folk’ scattered about the place.
Here come those Giant fellows with a live feed of the actual gig projected onto
the back-drop. It’s an eternity in there, man. So there they were; busting it
out from the get-go, and they were tight as the proverbial nun’s yoni, showing
off their impeccable timing with Music Jail, Pt 1 & 2. I was instantly
reminded of a gentler Mr Bungle. It’s the years of working together that allow
John Linnell and John Flansburgh to have such easy going banter on stage and
they chatted with the crowd at an intimate level throughout.
Boom! They busted out The
Mesopotanians. Bang! Here’s Particle Man and lo! They broke out the squeeze-box
while the other guitarist, the exceedingly talented Dan Miller, busted out some
magnificent lead and rhythm work. A massive nod to drummer Marty Beller and bassist Danny Weinkauf - everyone was note-bloody-perfect. The band mixed it up suitably with perfectly balanced mix of well known and not so well known tracks. We Live In A Dump
was followed by Answer, which was followed by Authenticity Trip. Suddenly they
popped in a cover of Destiny Child’s Bills, Bills, Bills and we all chuckled at
their whimsical (yet thoroughly wicked and thoroughly mad) skills.
The Giants self-deprecating
humour was evident throughout as the two Johns received a phone call from the
band’s collective mother (hilarious) before launching into some further
hilarity with a helium-inspired tirade on ‘jazz cigarettes’ before launched into Istanbul Not Constantinople
before finishing Set One with Rhythm Section Want Ad. A brief interlude allowed
for toilet breaks, beverage purchasing and general limbering up before Set Two –
an idea I could definitely get used to.
Woof! New York City. Boom! Let Me
Tell You About My Operation. Too much fun-times, I say; indeed, I was grinning
my chops off throughout. Bam! Number Three and Careful What You Pack. The
Statue Got Me High and new tune Underwater Woman – it was tune after tune
(surely they must have played 200 songs throughout the night?) of quirky brilliance.
Black Ops dropped and a bass clarinet was duly rolled out – how could they get
any better? I Was Dancing In A Lesbian Bar, that’s how.
Sadly there was no (coobidy coop
coop ca-chew) Spider but final track Fingertips, which was played note-perfect,
ended things on a suitably high note. An encore of Withered Hope, Robot Parade
and final tune (the almost inevitable) Birdhouse In Your Soul left an elderly
crowd very happy as they shuffled back to their respective nursing homes.
Bloody, bloody good.
