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hot shit
Saturday setlist:
Clap Your Hands / No! / Fibber Island [2pm only] / Bed Bed Bed / In the Middle, in the Middle, in the Middle / Doctor Worm / The Famous Polka / Where Do They Make Balloons? / John Lee Supertaster / Idlewild / Particle Man / Boss of Me / Violin / Deeply Felt Puppet Theater: Intro ~ Robot Parade ~ I Love to Sing ~ (Theme from) the Monkees [with TMBG] / Four of Two / Istanbul (not Constantinople) / I Am Not Your Broom / Why Does the Sun Shine? / New York City

Sunday setlist:
Clap Your Hands / No! / Idlewild / Bed Bed Bed / In the Middle, in the Middle, in the Middle / The Famous Polka / The Famous Polka ("crazy fast") [4pm show only] / Where Do They Make Balloons? / John Lee Supertaster / Particle Man / Boss of Me / Violin / Deeply Felt Puppet Theater: Intro ~ Robot Parade ~ I Love to Sing ~ Theme from the Monkees [with TMBG] / Fibber Island / Four of Two / Istanbul (not Constantinople) / I Am Not Your Broom / Why Does the Sun Shine? / Doctor Worm

mp3s above as linked; I also have setlist scans, photos and videos for each of the four shows.

I'll try to keep this brief:

Good god, these shows were just so fucking excellent, way better than last year's, which were extremely excellent themselves. I don't know whether it was because all of the Dans were there, or what. With them all there, the arrangements for the songs were much more fleshed-out than last year, and the shows were, I think, much louder, although not anywhere near adult show levels. But Dan Miller had his three guitars and his whole pedalboard, and he was really laying the wah-wah on for the little kids.

Part of what makes these kids shows so enjoyable even for child-haters like me is that John & John never talk down to the audience—they speak to the children as if they were completely reasonable beings (which even most adults usually aren't). So it's pretty much like being at a regular show, only with no swearing. Also, everyone in the band was just so loose and so obviously having a good time. The Dans kept having private conversations at the back of the stage, Danny kept smiling at the little kids, and I heard Dan Hickey speak onstage for the first time ever (apart from counting off songs). The shows were really a treat.

Details from Saturday (I'm scrambling stuff from both shows together):

Flans came out wearing a sportscoat, which was bizarre. He explained that this was his authorial costume.

Fibber Island: with some gorgeous fingerpicking from Dan Miller. Flans screwed up the lyrics during the 2pm show and the song was left out of the 4pm show. I was afraid they'd abandoned it because it hadn't been a success the first time, but apparently they simply forgot. (Flans started talking about Bed Bed Bed, which was the song after Fibber Island on the setlist, and Dan Miller actually started playing the intro to Fibber Island as if to try to remind Flans about it, but Flans won out and they skipped to Bed Bed Bed.)

Bed Bed Bed: Kids love confetti. At each show, after the cannon went off, periodically through the rest of the hour we'd see little bursts of confetti as the children gathered it up and threw it in the air. Dan Miller and Danny seemed fascinated by this: at one point Dan gathered some up to give to some kids who didn't seem to have enough; and another time Danny took a handful and dropped it on a little girl's head (which puzzled her).

Robin was fabulous. One show she came out and said, "Where'd all the confetti come from? I'm not cleaning it up...Okay." She picked up a tiny handful and stuffed it into her pocket. "Done cleaning! It's a little better now."

Flans introduced Doctor Worm as a good dance song. And Dan Miller started dancing. I don't even have words to express the joy that that sight brought me.
JF: Kids love songs about worms, and we know that adults love songs about doctors. And what we've done is fused those two ideas together, it's our little musical Reese's peanut butter cup. It's what we like to call...synergy. [and at this moment Linnell and Dan Miller simultaneously play the same note on the accordion and keyboard respectively]
Then he invited the kids down to dance:
JF: There's plenty of room on the dance floor, and there's lots of confetti now, so it's a whole impossible situation with trip-and-fall lawsuits and who knows what could happen. This could be it for us.
JL: 'Cause adults love doctors, but they don't love lawyers.

At the 4pm performance of the Famous Polka, Flans played his solo while wearing one of the giant foam hands. Dan Miller turned around and saw it and cracked up. And the solo sounded pretty bad.

Where Do They Make Balloons? was also totally exciting, even though Danny kept forgetting the words. He switched instruments with Dan Miller for this song, which was very odd: the guitar looked way too big for Danny, and the bass just not quite right on Dan.
JF: The idea for this song came to him in a dream.
JL: [with interest] Is that true?
DW: The truth of that is, it did come to me in a dream...I know what you're thinking, you're thinking, this guy is like Paul McCartney, he's dreaming songs. Only, Paul McCartney can dream songs like "Yesterday," and all I dreamed was the chorus of this song.

John Lee Supertaster had sort of mellow solos at both shows on Saturday, so as not to frighten the children, I suppose. Flans explained that it was a true story, that he has a friend named John Lee who is a supertaster and who writes jokes for Snoop Dogg (this is apparently actually, truly what John Lee is doing now that Muckafurgason has broken up).
JF: I found out there were people among us who have superpowers—
kid in audience: Like me!
JF: You've got superpowers?...Lightning fast! This young man is lightning fast.

Idlewild with a full band was beautiful, with a little bit of tropical guitar from Dan Miller. Flans had to ask both times what chord the song started with.

Before Boss of Me, Flans instructed all the older brothers and sisters in the audience to cover their ears for a moment while he gave some advice to the younger ones. And at one point or another, Linnell and Danny and Dan Miller all covered their ears, but at another time when Flans told younger brothers and sisters to raise their hands, they also all raised their hands, so I couldn't figure out whether they're all middle children or whether they were just obligingly playing along with everything that Flans said. (Dan Hickey did neither. Is he an only child?)

The wave thing in Violin is getting a little old but Flans did have this to say: "Parents, you have to stand up for the wave. I'm forty-three and I'm standing for the whole show." At the 4pm show:
JL: I think we can say that you guys have beaten the earlier performance's audience. You've won.
JF: But don't tell them. It'll hurt their feelings.
JL: Do tell them! And hurt their feelings!

The puppets were okay, but that segment seemed to drag a little bit, especially in the first show. But that might have been because there were technical difficulties (they kept playing the wrong prerecorded segment). But I didn't actually realize that wasn't part of the show until it didn't happen the second time.
JF: They are so great. Don't get 'em near a minibar, though.

Four of Two:
JL: This is a true story, and it starts in the past and goes through the present, and then it goes into the future, so it's actually going to happen.
JF: John is messing with the fabric of time, people!

Istanbul: Dan Miller did an intro that was more swing and less faux-Eastern. He really vamped out on the end of it, though, prompting Flans to say afterwards: "That was extraordinary, Dan. It was almost freakish."

The Sunday shows were similar to the Saturday ones, but the setlist was slightly rejiggered, which did seem to give the shows a better flow. What with one omission on Saturday and one addition on Sunday, all four shows ended up having different setlists.

Flans insisted that the name of the song is "Bed Bed Bed Bed Bed."
JL: Five beds, because there's five of us.

Robin came out for the last performance of In the Middle wearing two of the giant foam hands and used them to do a lot of pointing, which was very cute. Afterwards:
JF: Too much excitement! I'm gonna craaaash!

The Famous Polka:
JF: Kids, you ready for a polka?
kids: Yeah!
JF: We can't hear you!
kids: YEAH!
JF: Our ears are just for decoration after years of the crazy rock music...I don't think our drummer can hear you. Dan, what kind of song are we gonna do next?
and then Dan Hickey spoke:
DH: I think we should do a polka.

The spoken intro to John Lee Supertaster really seemed to encourage conversation between Flans and the kids.
JF: Children, listen carefully to the words I'm saying.
children: We are!
JF: [surprised] You are?
Dan Miller had played the Gibson on this song the previous day, but on Sunday he used the Danelectro all the way through (not just for the faux horn intro). I don't know whether there was a connection, but the solos were way more screaming this time around.

Boss of Me:
JF: This is a special long-distance dedication to my brother. He's forty-six years old, still telling me what to do. It never changes: it never gets exciting for me, or boring for him.

When they played Fibber Island today, Flans held up the No! booklet to read the lyrics, but he still managed to mess up every time. Nonetheless I thought it sounded great. (Because of the fingerpicking.)

Four of Two:
JF: This next song's about a clock that's stuck.
[long pause]
JL: I'm stuck!...Um, this song is about a real-life clock that told the wrong time for so long that it drove the person singing the song crazy.
JF: Crazy is a very important theme.
JL: Crazy and clocks.

Both times on Sunday Flans explained that Istanbul had a special introduction "composed" by Dan Miller, and every time he said "composed" Dan would laugh. Flans went all-out at the last show:
JF: So in the middle of the song, when I say "Dan Miller," you say, "Dan, that's some fancy picking!" Dan Miller!
audience: Dan, that's some fancy picking!
JF: I guess we should drop the "Dan" part, just: "that's some fancy picking!" A little more concise.
JL: "Say, Dan!"
JF: I'll say, "Say, Dan Miller!" and then you say, "that's some fancy picking!" And what we're gonna do is—
Dan Miller: [starts to play]
JF: Whoa, whoa— [Dan stops playing] What we're gonna do is try to ruin his concentration in the middle of his beautiful solo.
So Dan started to play in earnest and Flans would periodically lean into his mic and say "Say, Dan!" and the audience would yell, "that's some fancy picking!" The first time this happened, Dan laughed, but he kept going; and the other times he didn't even flinch. (What a pro.) Eventually Flans gave up on that and instead ordered, "Play the skinny strings!" And Dan instantly went from playing the heavy bottom strings to the thinner top strings without missing a beat.

Before Why Does the Sun Shine? Flans instructed the children to make a sort of "woo woo woo" car-alarm noise every time he told a lie. Saturday he'd been testing them with only obviously false statements, such as "Hi kids, I'm eighty feet tall! I'm awfully tall, aren't I?" but on Sunday he decided to make it trickier by throwing in some true things, leading to this:
JF: My name is John.
audience: [silence]
JF: I'm eighty feet tall.
audience: Woo woo woo!
JF: I like playing the guitar.
audience: [silence]
Dan Miller: Woo woo woo!
(me: hysterical laughter)
The kids did worse during the actual song; when Flans started naming various metals that are gases on the sun, there were car alarms everywhere.
JF: [confounded] No, that's all true.
JL: But thanks for playing our game.
During the last show Flans forgot to tell the kids to make the car-alarm noise, so Dan Miller started doing it for them, but they didn't really catch on.

At the end of the show Flans said They hope to see us all next year. I would really love to see these shows become an annual tradition, because they have been absolutely wonderful so far. They are totally fun.
 
 
music: Optiganally Yours, "Walk & Chew Gum"


Comments

( 3 comments — add a comment )
[info]artmonkeygirl wrote:
Dec. 11th, 2003 10:53 am (UTC)
And Dan Miller started dancing. I don't even have words to express the joy that that sight brought me.

Me too! :)

At the end of the show Flans said They hope to see us all next year. I would really love to see these shows become an annual tradition, because they have been absolutely wonderful so far. They are totally fun.

Those shows were wonderful. Just speaking for myself, I will definitely being flying out for those shows again! (And thank you so much for giving us rides to and from the shows. That was really, really nice of you!)

[info]aliste wrote:
Dec. 11th, 2003 11:18 am (UTC)
You are very welcome, of course. It was not any trouble at all. I'm really glad I got the chance to meet you. And I look forward to next time!
[info]richegreen wrote:
Dec. 11th, 2003 12:02 pm (UTC)
Flans was also wearing a sports jacket (over a TSHIRT, no less!) at last night's concert in NYC.

that was a fabulous review, I wish I could have seen those shows :)
( 3 comments — add a comment )