There are few things as delightful as a They Might Be Giants show, and the Johns — Flansburgh and Linnell — proved just that on Friday night at Bearsville Theater in Woodstock. Some 40-odd years into their career, they remain one of the most inventive and quirky live acts working today. If you try to fit them into any kind of musical genre box, you’ll quickly realize that no such box exists — nor should it.
The first of two sold-out nights in Woodstock felt less like a concert and more like a homecoming: for the fans who filled the floor, and for the band itself, which seemed genuinely thrilled to be making this particular noise in this historic, music-rich town. At one point early on, Linnell noted the nostalgia of visiting Woodstock, mentioning that they had recorded an early album just down the road — at what is now the Bearsville Theater complex. That album was John Henry (1994), their fifth studio album, tracked over a five-week period between December 1993 and January 1994. Linnell also recalled occasional stays at a home once owned by the late Robbie Robertson of The Band. The evening opened with a complete performance of Lincoln, the 1988 album that helped cement the duo’s reputation for being endearingly odd. Playing an album front-to-back is a gesture that easily was accepted like a revisit from old friends with fresh enthusiasm. “Ana Ng” closed the set with the explosive momentum it always delivers.
The mind-bending curveball of the first set was “stelluB” — a song that seems like it was made in a lab in an alternate universe. It’s a backwards version of the TMBG song “Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love,” which the band learned to perform in reverse, live, with the full band. On Friday, they performed it in the first half of the show while the band’s cameras recorded it, and then that video was played back in reverse for the audience at the end of intermission.
From there, the set flew through a glorious range of catalog gems — and a few bright new ones. The World Is to Dig, the band’s 24th studio album released just two weeks prior on April 14th, was represented with quiet confidence: “Get Down,” the album’s horn-bolstered espionage-funk standout, hit even harder with the full eight-piece band behind it. The set continued through “Letterbox,” and the always-spectacular “Fingertips” — performed with the intricate chaos it demands. “Fingertips” is best described as a cross between a chopped up “Frontier Psychiatrist” by the Avalanches’ and just any of Weird Al’s polka medleys — and even then, the description feels quite a ways off. The dry delight of “Let Me Tell You About My Operation” underlined how sarcastically deep and funny TMBG’s songbook remains. The set finished with “Birdhouse in Your Soul,” a crowd-pleaser that peaked at #3 on the US Modern Rock Tracks chart and #6 on the UK Singles Chart, making it They Might Be Giants’ highest-charting single in both countries.
Two encores followed. The first brought “Overnight Sensation (Hit Record)” — originally recorded by the Raspberries and released in September 1974 — followed by “Particle Man.” The second encore was a one-song delivery: “Doctor Worm,” a late-period TMBG classic delivered with the kind of joy that makes you realize these two men have never once pretended to be cooler than they are. It is one of their greatest qualities.
Set One:(Lincoln Album Spotlight): Santa’s Beard, Stand on Your Own Head, Piece of Dirt, Where Her Eyes Don’t Go, Pencil Rain, Lie Still, Little Bottle, Shoehorn with Teeth, Cowtown, I’ll Sink Manhattan, They’ll Need a Crane, Wu-Tang, Hit the Ground, StelluB, Snowball in Hell, Ana Ng
Set Two: Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love (video of “StelluB reversed), Stompy Video Intro, Stuff Is Way, You Probably Get That A Lot, Moonbeam Rays, Letterbox, Fingertips, ’Til My Head Falls Off, 2082, Brontosaurus, Get Down, Let Me Tell You About My Operation, When Will You Die, Birdhouse in Your Soul
Encore 1: Overnight Sensation (Hit Record), Particle Man
Encore 2: Doctor Worm
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