Pictures and scans here.

setlist:
First Avenue Stage / Experimental Film / Spine / Memo to Human Resources / Wearing a Raincoat / The Guitar / Birdhouse in Your Soul / Bastard Wants to Hit Me / James K Polk / Prevenge / Thunderbird / Violin / Ana Ng / New York City / Older / Robot Parade / It's Kickin' In / Drink! / Particle Man / Au Contraire / Twisting / End of the Tour // John Lee Supertaster / Stalk of Wheat / Doctor Worm // First Avenue Stage (reprise) / Fingertips

If you're just looking for the short version, well, I guess you shouldn't have come here for it. But, briefly, this was absolutely the best TMBG show I've ever been to. And I've been to a fair number of them. unsupervised had told me several times that First Avenue is her favorite place to see Them of all the many venues she's seen Them at, so when we saw each other last December we made a pact that next time They were at First Avenue, we'd be there together. I almost wasn't able to make it this time, but with the help of artmonkeygirl and zimbra1006 I got my shit together and made the pilgrimage. And I am so glad I did.

I have to admit, after the previous four shows and all that driving, I did have a moment of weakness, when I thought, "I don't know if I'm really gonna be able to make it to Minneapolis and enjoy it." That moment happened as I climbed into bed late, late Wednesday night after the trip to Madison.

Next morning I woke up and thought, "We're going to Minneapolis tomorrow! Yay!" So it was all right.

It's a fucking long way from Chicago to Minneapolis. We got in the car and drove and drove. Just before Madison we hit some horrendous weather which stayed with us through past Tomah. It isn't that far from Madison to Tomah, but the torrential rain slowed us down quite a bit. My sustaining thought throughout this ordeal was, "Right at this moment unsupervised is driving up to Minneapolis just like we are."

We were at First Avenue at around 5 (for doors at 6). unsupervised had been there for about half an hour and the line was still pretty short. So we got in line with her and almost immediately she started trying to persuade me to go see Them again in Columbia and St Louis this Tuesday and Wednesday. I clutched my head and moaned, "I can't do it. I'm just too tired." Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I am old.

It was hot. We got some ice cream. We stood there and ate the ice cream as it rapidly melted in the warm evening. Danny came out (no red pants tonight) and stood on the sidewalk for a while, then he and Linnell and Marty went walking down the street. We saw Common Rotation and Corn Mo going off somewhere for dinner. Corn Mo was in street clothes. I guess I found that weird. Flans and Dan came out of the club and we watched Dan fold himself into the back seat of a Ford Escort hatchback. I didn't think he was gonna make it in there, but he did, and the car sped away.

They opened the doors pretty promptly and we raced down to the front. We were the only ones in the front for a long while, actually. So we had plenty of time to lean back and absorb the fine First Avenue ambiance, but we didn't literally want to lean back against the stage, 'cause it was very sticky on the front. The other somewhat irritating thing about the stage was that it was really high. It was pretty much level with the top of my head (I'm five feet tall) so I knew I was gonna have a sore neck by the end of the night. If I got up on my tiptoes I could just poke my nose over the edge and see Their shoes (or lack of shoes, in Linnell's case). But I suppose there's really no reason I need to see their shoes.

First Avenue is a neat little place. It's irregularly shaped and there's a glassed-in area upstairs. I guess that's where the people go who care more about drinkin' than the show (although there were plenty of obnoxious drunks down in the pit as well). There's a big movie screen that they lower in front of the stage before the show starts (they play cartoons and stuff on it), but there was enough of a gap under it that I could peek under and see that they'd covered up Marty's drum kit to hide the logo on the bass drum. That's just silly.

It was a little surprising how punctually everything happened. There'd been a sign posted outside that said TMBG would be starting at 8:30, and they very nearly made it. It was really hot in there, so that I was actually feeling kinda sick, and I struggled with the question: go get water and possibly miss the beginning of the show, or stay put and possibly pass out and miss the end of the show?

I got the water. And I was back in plenty of time for Their entrance. They didn't do the Orff/flashing lights thing tonight; they played some intro music and just walked out onto the stage. This intro turned out way more exciting than this low-key entrance might have hinted, though, because after greeting us they proceeded to play a song that they had specially composed about First Avenue. The lyrics were

Just before we got up here
All the guys were having a fight
Marty was yelling at Danny and John
John threw stuff at Dan
But the anger we felt for each other was kept in our private backstage world
All our hatred was left behind when we took command of the First
Avenue stage! (repeat ad lib to end)

Also, when Dan Miller saw me in the front row he smiled and waved at me. I waved back and then I dissolved into schoolgirl giggles. Because I'm a big dork.

They went into Experimental Film and then Flans made his Prince reference of the night. It was much briefer than I'd expected though. Linnell started introducing Spine and Flans turned to look at him. Then he noticed there was no spotlight on him.
JF: Hey, John, where are you? I can't see you.
JL: I didn't give Troy the money. [Troy is their new lighting guy.]

They played Spine with the segue into Memo to Human Resources and it was just lovely. The new songs are getting really tight. It's good. But everything sounded so good tonight.

The dance contest during The Guitar has apparently become a fixture on this tour. When Flans announced it I turned to unsupervised and said "I wonder what the prize will be." I couldn't possibly have guessed—nobody could have.
JF: We've been buying special junk-store items but we've run out, so tonight, courtesy of the First Avenue catering, we have—since we know it's over 21, we have two delicious ice-cold Pabst Blue Ribbon beers. Now, ladies and gentlemen, you might ask yourself, why would I dance for Pabst Blue Ribbon? I can tell you that these are can-aged beers. These beers go back to the Reagan administration. And there's just something a little extra-special about cracking open a PBR and thinking, "it's the Reagan era."

Flans mentioned that they were doing a kids show the next day and said that show could not be as good as this one because tonight they could do this next song.
JL: That's because this song has the word "bastard" in it, which apparently some parents have a problem with.
JF: Like, we went to the parents and we said, "What the fuck?" And they said, "Dude!" And no, we said "What the fuck?"
JL: We said "fuck" because we're bad boys.
JF: And they said, like, "Dude, it's my kid, dude." And I said, "Right on!"
JL: That was exactly how it went.

This time Linnell set off the confetti cannons at the usual moment in James K Polk. (There was a little note on the setlist to remind him.) And there was a lot less vibrato than usual in the guitar solo. That disconcerted me, because I don't deal well with changes.

After that Flans said, "Ladies and gentlemen, is it mind-bendingly hot in here or is it simply Danny Weinkauf on the bass!"
JL: I can't tell, because my mind is bent.
JF: We've got a special stage announcement for whoever knows where the air conditioner is: turn it on!
See, Danny wasn't wearing the red pants, so I incline to the idea that in fact it was really mind-bendingly hot in there.

Well, Thunderbird. I don't know what you want me to say about it. I screamed when they started playing it. And I enjoyed it.

Then there was the five-minute explanation of the wave. It was even longer than usual tonight because, as I said, the club is oddly shaped. There's an upper level, but it's not exactly a balcony; the soundboard is up there and the glassed-in area is behind it. So John and John discussed for several minutes which way the wave should go, and asked the spotlight guys to point the spotlights various places. Flans asked them to shine the lights on each other, as he so often does, but this was the first time I'd seen them actually able to do it. Linnell seemed confused as to the purpose of this experiment.
JF: I just wanted to acknowledge the spotlight guys, for doing such a fantastic job. We've got some PBR for you after the show...Let's turn the spotlights on the people behind the glass. Oh, but it's reflecting!
JL: I think we're getting some light. They're squinting.
They eventually decided that Troy would be the endpoint of the wave, so when they did the wave during the song it went back to Troy, who held the "linger" all by himself for a while, and then around the sides back to the stage. They had to practice this twice and it was still damn shitty. There was a drunk man in the audience shouting about how he hated it and usually I don't like to align myself with the drunks in the crowd, but this time I had to agree.

Oh, the drunks in the audience. unsupervised had warned us that (despite her love for the place), "it's not the friendliest place to see a show." I didn't get shoved much (but then I had unsupervised's sister behind me as a buffer), but artmonkeygirl and zimbra1006 were right in the center and they took a lot of abuse. There were several people who kept reaching up to touch Flans's feet, and there was a lot of yelling. One guy kept screaming "Robot Parade" even after They had already played it. That was what kind of crowd it was.

They ran through a few more and when they started It's Kickin' In I screamed. Not as loudly as I had screamed for Thunderbird, but still. It sounded great and as far as I could tell Flans knew all the words perfectly. That one was totally, totally worth the wait.

The last verse of Particle Man was very, very odd. There was a lot of screaming and some weird voices. (I'm definitely putting an mp3 of this one up.) Afterwards:
JF: Hey John, I wanna do that First Avenue song again.
JL: I can't remember how it goes...No no, we did it right the first time.
JF: That's not technically true.

Then they got ready to do Au Contraire.
JF: We've got a brand-new song for you—actually we probably played it the last time we were here—
JL: That's how new it is. It's as new as the last show, as fresh as the headlines from last time we played here.
JF: I believe the headline was, "Bush will not be involved in nation-building."
They did the new album version of the song, with the 2-guitar question-and-answer thing in the bridge (but no flute outro). Pretty neat. Flans is so cute when he's playing single notes rather than chords—he looks like he's thinking so hard about it.

I was hoping they'd then do the segue into Damn Good Times, but this time I was disappointed. Perhaps three (sort of) new songs in one night was too much to hope for. They did Twisting, and that one did have a nice segue after it into the jazz waltz-thank you song.

They played End of the Tour, they left the stage, they came back and did John Lee Supertaster and then Flans did a plug for the kids show the next day.
JF: It's officially a kids concert, so stand in front of some kids.
He listed off a bunch of songs they were planning to do, then promised that if there were enough adults there they'd also do Don't Let's Start and She's an Angel (neither of which they ended up playing).
JF: Please bring your underage friends, like twenty-year olds, nineteen-year-olds, eighteen-year-olds. We enjoy playing for adults more than anything you'll ever know.
I have to say that last bit was very reassuring, 'cause I was afraid that eventually there would only be shows where I'd go and the whole audience would be kids who'd be young enough to be, well, my kids.

Flans thanked the crew and then he got into this long discussion with an obnoxious lady who was holding up a cell phone. She said she wanted them to play a song into the phone for her kids who were at home.
JF: Play one for your kids? You know we're doing a children's show tomorrow. It's free. What's the number for Social Services?...Don't flip me the bird, I'm just joking! Get a sense of humor, lady, you gave me the fuckin' bird!
JL: Hey, the phone is still on.
JF: [genuinely embarrassed] We can't do children's shows.
JL: I think we've made a new enemy. Kids adore this next song. [The lady had continued screaming and holding the phone up through all of this.] It's gonna sound horrible through the phone, I just want to tell you that.

They came out for the second encore and did a reprise of the First Avenue Song, with a tasty solo from Dan Miller to end it this time. Linnell was kind of conducting the rest of the band to make sure it all stuck together okay. When they'd finished:
JL: I wanna say we'll be working on that one, but actually, we won't be.

Flans reminded us once again about the kids show the next day and then said they had a curfew so could play only one more song. I don't like that excuse, and what's more, this was a 21+ show so no curfew should have applied. Apparently they turn the club into a disco after the show is over, but come on, that's some fucked-up priorities.

When they left the stage the screen came down again, but there was still that gap so people kept looking under it and hoping to get a setlist. Linnell's and Flans's were given away, but none of the crew would come over to stage right, which was disappointing. The stage was way too high for self-service, but then while I was standing there thinking about it Dan Miller came out. There were three or four of us there and we all waved at him and pointed at his setlist which was still taped down. He bent down to get it and handed it to me, but not without apologizing to the others for not giving it to them. Aw. (I know I've said this a bunch of times, but: he's so polite.) I thanked him and then said, "Dan, we left a message for you" and pointed to where I'd written a couple words with a silver Sharpie on the black tape edging the rug. He squinted at it and then laughed, and then he left, and then I went to find my friends and we all left.

I can give you facts (hell, I can give you opinions too, and that's what I've been doing), but I can't explain exactly why this show was just so damn good. They played well, and they spoke well, but it was more than just that. It was the whole mood. I mean, they composed a song just for this show at this venue. And another thing I noticed when I looked at the setlist—okay, this is a lengthy aside, but anyway, if you've never been to First Avenue—first off, if you've never been there, then you need to go, but second, the entrance is right on the corner of 1st Ave and 7th St and the front of the building is this big curve with the name of the club on it. And on the setlist, at the top, Flans drew a big curved thing at the top and put the name of the club on it, much like outside. I don't know if that was deliberately meant to echo the architecture of the place, but it seems more than coincidental. Anyway, that warmed my heart. And now I can't remember why I mentioned it.

Damn fine show. It took us seven and a half hours to get there and just over six to get back. Fourteen hours of driving and it was worth every minute. That's what I'm saying.