Okay, we made it back from the zoo show without being either completely roasted or soaked, so based on that alone the day was a success. Really we did have a fine time overall. Here are some pictures and videos. I realized that all of the videos are missing bits from the beginning (I guess my trigger finger's not quick enough) but I think they will do.

There's already a pretty exhaustive banter summary on the wiki so I'll try not to repeat too much of that. And hobbitgrrl has all the really exciting stories. :P But a good time was had by all.

We got off to what even I thought was an insanely early start, heading over to the zoo right after lunch (tamales! gosh, tamales are my favorite show-day food), but when we got there we spotted quite a number of adults and children wearing TMBG shirts already strolling around. We went down and checked out the stage area—it was set up near the flamingo pond, facing toward a short grassy slope, and we saw Marty hanging out behind the stage. Having reconnoitred, we then took our own tour of the zoo, not forgetting to stop by the sea lion pool at 2 to watch the feeding of the seals.

We figured if we hung around the zoo during the day we'd be probably be able to catch the soundcheck at some point, and while we were observing the gorillas we suddenly heard a loud burst of music, so we went back toward the stage, where we gradually realized that they were playing the Toto song "Rosanna" through the PA. But we also saw the band onstage, so we sat down on the grass (not too close) to see what was happening. There were a few other people watching as well, but it was pretty weird sitting there in broad daylight with them onstage. They doodled around for a while and then Flans sang this song that I have been unable to identify, something about a blonde flamingo and being in paradise (EDIT: it seems to be Pretty Flamingo, a tune popularized by Manfred Mann). At one point he hit a wrong note and asked Linnell, "Isn't it the V?" But Linnell played the chords and gently corrected him: "It's the IV."

Then they had to work through some other issues with the sound and Linnell just stood there, periodically asking, "Can we play a song now?" He seemed anxious to move things along. Eventually he left the stage, followed by Flans, and finally Marty and Danny. Dan stayed behind; he appeared to be giving the guitar tech (not Andy Lala! where is Andy?) a good working over about how he was handling his instruments. He spent quite a while fiddling with stuff.

After some time the other guys came back and they did the soundcheck for real, playing The Kids Are Alright (sic), Mr Tambourine Man, and Why Does the Sun Shine? interspersed with snippets of My Sharona and Don't Fear the Reaper. Linnell asked if they needed to check the accordion as well, but just played it solo a bit, not a whole song. Then Dan spent another rather long while tweaking stuff with his acoustic guitar, and finally they were done, at which point we headed off to get in line outside the zoo.

We didn't have too long to wait; the weather was rather alarming though, with somewhat ominous clouds. The event was advertised as rain or shine but happily it didn't rain after all. I did bring in an umbrella, which of course I forgot to take with me when I left. I assume it'll go into the lost & found, so if you're ever at the Lincoln Park Zoo and need an umbrella, you can go in there and say you lost the small green one and get a free umbrella, courtesy of me.

They opened the gates and leahrosmerta and I took off running like dorks while psyknife and unsupervised followed at a more sedate pace. It was maybe a couple hundred yards from the gate to the front of the stage; this was more running than I'd done in probably the last two years total, so basically I almost died. (I guess the asthma doesn't help either.) But we got good spots left-center front, where psyknife and unsupervised shortly joined us, then hobbitgrrl, izzat, and eventually cptmoll. We got some free yellow foam fingers—I already have two, but it's hard for me to turn down free stuff. I figured I could give it away later anyway if I didn't want to hang onto it. Security told us to stay a few feet back from the stage, claiming there would be security people along the front later, but that turned out to be a lie...meanwhile we sat on the grass and craned our heads to look up at the stage, which was a bit too high for comfortable viewing (my neck still hurts even now).

Things proceeded in a pretty timely manner. Tally Hall started their set not much after 6. They were quite delightful. A brief pause and then Ralph Covert & the Bad Examples came on. They were the opposite of delightful: they completely emptied me of all delight. And they did this for about an hour and a half. It was absolutely dreadful. People around me started lying down to rest, so after a while it looked like the field was strewn with dead bodies. Yes; they were killed by the power of crappy, boring music.

I went off for a bathroom break hoping the band would finish up while I was waiting in the long line, but sadly, no. They went on and on and finally hobbitgrrl leaned over to me and said she was feeling the urge to write "GO AWAY" on the back of her foam hand and hold it up to show Ralph. She didn't end up doing that, but I was in the mood to write something on the hands, so we decided to haul out that favorite old phrase "Dan Miller fuck yeah" which we carefully inscribed across four hands. I was the designated "Miller" holder for the show, but I said I'd take the "fuck" hand home with me, since hobbitgrrl didn't want it. "I love the fuck hand!" I said happily. And I meant it.

Finally old Ralph was done and people started standing up and pushing to the front of the stage. We managed to hold our position in the very front and I ended up just left of center (actually closer to the center than I usually choose to be, but oh well). The crew went around setting stuff up. Unexpectedly Dan also came out to check his gear, so we quickly organized to hold the hands up. I called out to Dan and he turned around to look, saw our message and laughed, so I felt our effort had been well-rewarded. Will, who had come out to tape down some cables, laughed even harder though. Hey, the more appreciation, the better.

Lin Brehmer of XRT came out to do a brief introduction and mere minutes later the show started. Marty came out and started pounding along with the Stompy intro music, then soloed for a bit before they launched into Snail Shell. They did Istanbul with no intro at all (just Danny playing the bass line), prompting me to boo. I'm sorry, guys, I do take it back now. But I just don't like it when that intro is taken away from me.

Damn Good Times was sanitized for the children to "Dang" Good Times. Dan looked very amused as he sang the bowdlerized lyrics. Happily, the band did not seem to feel that the closing solo also needed to be toned down for the young'uns. Flans exhorted us to "hate the game, not the player!" as Dan started in on it. We held up the "Dan Miller fuck yeah" hands during the solo; Danny came nearer to look, and I could see Linnell squinting at them also. I don't think Flans ever looked at them (we held them up a few times during the show) but maybe he was just playing it cool and only pretending not to see.

After Why Does the Sun Shine? Flans sent a shout-out to all the people who were too far away to see anything.
JF: We'd like to be thinking about you, but we've got other things to concentrate on.
JL: That's what the pilot was saying on our flight on the way here.
JF: And we knew he was lying.
I guess their flight was delayed? I was thinking this might have been the same flight that John Roderick (of the Long Winters) had been on, the night before, when he was very late to the show we'd seen him at then (and he name-checked TMBG during his set, so hurrah!) but apparently they had only come in that morning, so I guess not. Flans gestured way out to the edges of the crowd and Dan went over to add a greeting of his own. Then Flans blew some kisses.

Finally they moved on to Bee of the Bird of the Moth, whose title and lyrics Linnell managed to get right this time. Flans introduced In the Middle, Linnell started off, and Dan flubbed his part. He sort of tried to play through it, then threw up his hands with a laugh. Linnell said something I didn't catch, but Flans chided him:
JF: Ix-nay on the anguage-lay, Mr Linnell.
JL: I think in a zoo you can say "screw it up."
JF: (to the audience) Please address your angry letters to Mr John Linnell.
JL: (pedantically) It seems the gorillas have never heard that word.

The second time through Dan managed his part successfully. No confetti cannons for Polk, and the guitar solo sounded way different from usual. I still hate Older. In fact I think I hate it more every time I hear it. Dude, that's a lot of hate—I don't even want to try to count how many times I've heard it. Flans rocked out so hard on Don't Let's Start. Afterwards, being out of breath, he tried to pass the banter off to Linnell but then kept talking anyway, going off on this insane ramble about being frozen in space. Linnell was left trailing in his wake, making confused attempts to agree with whatever Flans said. Finally Flans introduced We Live in a Dump, which I still love. He mixed up "drunks" and "nuts" last time I saw them do this song, but he seems to have put them back in their original order (for now).

I do enjoy Spider but I agree with cptmoll that it's probably good that it doesn't last longer than it does. Next came the Guitar and one of the most exciting parts of the night—Flans came up to the front of the stage and gave his pick to someone in the front row...hobbitgrrl! Then he fingered the chords while she strummed the guitar. Totally fucking awesome.

After that the conga. Why do they only do this at shows where it's so hot that too much movement makes you feel like throwing up? That's what it's been the last three times I've seen it, anyway. Flans also censored himself for this song, saying "everybody conga, people I'm not kidding" instead of "I'm not fucking kidding" as usual. He was really good about the swearing all night, actually. Props to his self-control.

I love the guitar line in No One Knows My Plan. After that Dan slung on his acoustic guitar and Flans introduced Drink! He coached us for the audience participation and then introduced Dan, informing us that he's not Irish (which amused me greatly, for reasons which those of you who read tmbg_dreams may understand). Linnell came and stood right over me during this song. He also came right up in front of us during the Famous Polka (check out those leg kicks!).

Dan then crossed over to the keyboard for the Alphabet of Nations/Doctor Worm pairing. Those two songs seem to have been joined at the hip for the past year and more. They are always played successively now. Maybe they want to minimize Dan's having to walk back and forth across the stage, but...is that really so difficult for him? It's not like Dan has a pegleg or anything.

After that, very excitingly, they played the Cap'm, which is the one new song they've been playing live that I hadn't seen them do yet. It was pretty rockin'. But I'll have to hear it a few more times before I really know how I feel about it.

Before they did Asbury Park Flans pointed out the merch table. He suggested that we buy the Venue Songs set, saying it was "a DVD and a CD that is available only at our t-shirt stand, because you will not buy it later online." He assured us the proceeds would go to support the gorillas (in the band).

They took a moment to thank various people, the flamingos, and Tally Hall (but, notably, not Ralph Covert) and introduce the band, followed by Twisting, a very short break, and the encore. Linnell instructed us to clap during Particle Man, "like we're the Oakridge Boys...plus four thousand" (were there really four thousand people at the show? I know it was sold out). Then he threw random "Elvira"s here and there into the song.

Flans finally did thank the Bad Examples, claiming spaced-outness for the earlier omission, and Linnell pondered whether it seemed like a deliberate diss to have left them out. Then people in the audience started yelling stuff out. One guy requested Ana Ng.
JL: I didn't mean to open up dialogue here.
JF: No, I want to answer that. We're not going to play the songs you want us to play.
Which gave me a brilliant idea: next show I go to, I'll keep yelling out "Older" until they turn contrary and refuse to play it. If only there were any possibility that would actually happen. And actually I try my best not to be that obnoxious during shows.

John and John fended off some more audience remarks and they went into Experimental Film. Flans left Dan to do all the "yeah"s by himself, and Dan kept looking over at him and laughing at his being such a slacker. Then Birdhouse (I missed the first minute or so, but at least I got the bit where Flans held out his arms to catch Dan and Dan totally rejected him). And the finale was We're the Replacements. I love the part where Linnell just freaks out and screams. It's hilarious yet strangely terrifying.

When they left the stage, the lights stayed down for so long that we thought there might possibly be a second encore, but eventually they started playing the exit music. People were climbing up on the stage and stuff, and hobbitgrrl got special treatment from Danny, so I didn't get a setlist this time, although a guy by the soundboard (I think he was working the show in some capacity) let me take a photo of his. But I did get Danny and Marty to sign something for a friend of mine. And we started looking around for any of the other guys. They tend to split quickly after a show in really hot weather, so I didn't have much hope, but we decided to go out to where their van was parked.

We headed out of the zoo and on the way we saw Bob, their tour manager. Then, I don't even know why, we were all like, "Hey, Bob!" and he looked around and kinda waved, then looked really confused because obviously he had no idea who we were and why we were calling him by name. We totally fucked with his head, without really even meaning to! It was amusing, in a sort of creepy way.

So we went out by their van. I honestly felt really weird about it—I think it was the most stalker-y thing I've ever done. I mean, it's true that I've talked to the various band members and especially Dan quite a few times, but it's been because they came out into the venue after the show, or just happened to be in the same place I was, with no premediation on my part. This was the first time I'd gone to a specific spot with the explicit intention of waylaying them on their way to someplace else. So, it was freaky. But on the other hand I was willing to do it, so I guess I couldn't have felt that bad about it. I hope this doesn't put me on a slippery slope, though.

Anyway we waited for rather a while. After a bit we relocated nearer a zoo building where we'd seen Tally Hall coming in and out. This plan eventually paid off when finally Dan emerged. I was a bit hesitant about approaching him but I could tell none of my friends were going to do it :P , so I went up to him, and he put away his cigarettes with a smile and came over to chat with us. First he asked us to show him the hands again since he hadn't gotten a very good look before; we held them out for his inspection and I added #4,672 to my list of Dumb Things I Have Said to Members of TMBG:

me: (offering) Do you want the fuck hand? It's my favorite.
Dan: (laughing) That's all right, you can keep it.

In retrospect I'm glad he didn't accept my spontaneous offer, because...it is my favorite. (By the way, confidential to my concertgoing companions, the Dan hand was left in my car—anybody want it? I would keep it, but I've already got two other foam fingers, and the isolated "fuck" and "Dan" hands don't result in any pleasing combinations together. Let me know.) Anyway I got him to sign something for my friend (he signed it "Dan Miller fuck yeah!!"—hee!) and there were handshakes all around. I wanted to ask him where Andy Lala had gone, but just then the rest of the band came out of the building and moved rapidly en masse to the van. "Dan!" Marty called out (rather sharply); so he went on his way. And that was that.

And my neck still hurts. But it was certainly a most excellent time. Hope we get to do it again soon!