We had an excellent time. Listen to the whole show right now if you like, photos and stuff are here, or scroll on down if you want to read more about it.

(intro) / Alphabet of Nations / Istanbul (not Constantinople) / Flying V / Robot Parade / Doctor Worm / Clap Your Hands / No! / Alphabet Lost and Found / New York City / Particle Man

The recording came out way better than I expected based on where my mics were placed. It's actually pretty clean; there's occasional audible conversation between children and parents and a few times the noise of bags and coats being shifted as parents shove their children forward into the pit area, and me apologizing as I hit the guy in front of me in the head a couple times. Also, during Clap Your Hands, hobbitgrrl's and my terrified cries as we are sure we're about to plummet down to certain death or at least significant injury on the first floor below. But more on that later.

Anyway, we drove out to Ann Arbor, making good time despite the crazy spurts of lake-effect snow that caused a few temporary white-outs on the way. We got to the Borders around 4 and as we climbed the stairs I wondered aloud if we were the first people there.

Well, we were not, but there wasn't a crowd yet or anything so we set up camp in front of the stage, just slightly to the Flans side and behind a family who apparently had been there since about noon. The mother tried to win cool-mom points with us by telling us how she'd taken her kids out of school for this event, but she soon became the most-reviled mother in the room when, after Flans's express instruction for the adults to stand back and the children to sit down in the front, she remained standing with her husband, son and daughter in the exact middle of the very front row. The father was maybe 5'11" and the son was actually taller, and as everybody around them grumbled, the mother looked around with a satisfied smile, apparently quite aware that her family was the only one standing amongst all the seated children, but apparently completely unaware that said family was the object of a wave of intense hatred from the hundreds of other people in the room.

Eventually someone suggested that they sit down, which they did, and I felt my blood pressure descending, and the show started. Flans had earlier been wearing a lovely dark brown jacket, but, sadly, he took it off for the performance.

They were getting ready onstage and hobbitgrrl and I snapped into fangirl mode: we yelled "Marty!" and, much to our delight, he acknowledged us with a wave. Flush with our success, when we saw Linnell putting on his Main Squeeze we yelled "Main Squeeze!" Linnell completely ignored us (hee!) but Marty, either being generous or having misunderstood, waved again. Heh. (Oh Marty, you know we'd let you be our Main Squeeze anytime.)

Since you can listen to the entire show, I won't go into too much detail about it, but for those who can't sit through the whole thing, here are some highlights (if you want to be surprised when you listen, you can skip down to read about the post-show activities including the secret of Marty's sequined wristbands and my idiotic conversation with Flansburgh):

Before they started, Flans claimed that TMBG had "performed at over 320 Borders, so it was very exciting to be at Borders store #001."

After Alphabet of Nations Flans introduced a song "composed by John Linnell's pinky finger. It's called 'Pinky Finger' and it's off our new album Pinky Finger, available...uh..." [trails off, unsure of where to take the joke next]
JL: Et cetera.

Then they did this wacky stuff on the Kaoss pad with Marty on the conga and Flans doodling on the bass, and broke into Istanbul, at which point hobbitgrrl and I simultaneously turned to each other with our mouths open in surprise, because we had had no idea that that intro would lead into that song. It was quite unexpected and rather cool.

Flans was adorable on the bass. During Flying V he was playing with great concentration, but he made a mistake, paused and looked surprised, then laughed at himself and continued. Awww. We love you Flans!

Before Doctor Worm:
JF: We usually play this at the end, so I don't know what to say. "Thanks a lot, good night!"
JL: Right. "We got a whole bunch more songs, thanks for coming!"

So there we were up on the second floor of Borders #001 and Flans tells us to stomp our feet and jump in the air. Okay, that floor was not designed for that kind of stress: it trembled terrifyingly. Do I need to have a Modjeska moment at every show I go to in Ann Arbor? I was sure we were all going to fall straight through down to the first floor. It's lucky Clap Your Hands is only about a minute long. Then they did a weird little segue into No!, thus switching the order they've long been playing these two songs in.

Marty stepped up for his shining moment. Flans, by way of apology for the prerecorded backing track that Marty was going to sing over, explained that They had decided to dump the Dans and switch to a boy-band concept called B4 (followed by a passing reference to a B3 organ—whew!). Marty sang and danced and it was delightful. Flans was still reading his parts off a piece of paper, and he did them really quickly—he would speed through the spoken bits so fast that Marty would have to wait several beats to start singing.

Before the last couple of songs Flans reviewed the ground rules for the signing afterward.
JF: You don't have to buy anything, we'll be happy to sign anything, photographs are not a problem. Um, I don't talk into cell phones. You gotta say no to something.
man in crowd: Do you sign children?
JF: We do not sign children. But if you want us to sign your child, we will borrow your cell phone to call social services.

The last song was Particle Man. It was wonderfully wacky, so go listen to it. And that was the show.

As soon as they got off the stage the mob started heaving in a somewhat alarming way, some people heading toward the exit but most going to join the line for signing. Marty was still by the stage so we decided to ask if he could get us a setlist, but it appeared that Flans had had the only copy and it had already disappeared. Then I asked him the question that has been haunting me for weeks, since I first saw them: where does he get his sequined "M" wristbands? And he told me that his sister-in-law makes them for him and that he would tell her that we liked them. (Sure you will, Marty. Thanks. :P ) We got him to sign our posters. And we had a really confused conversation about the Madison show tomorrow, in which we confirmed that Marty will be playing, but nothing else. Marty in fact seemed to know less about it than we did: "Do you know what that is?" he asked us. Well, all we know is what's on the web page.

Just then nathew came up and I introduced myself. He talked to Marty, who remembered him as the guy who'd made the Beller/Miller '04 sign. Neat! And then we went over and got into the line for signing. It was a really, really long line.

Finally it was our turn and I handed my poster to Linnell. He started to sign it toward the bottom, near where Marty had signed, but I asked, "Would you sign near your head?" and with a smile he said he would, and he did, and then asked me my name to write it on there. He was very sweet.

I moved on to Flans and there was a bit of confusion as hobbitgrrl sort of arrived at the same moment. So he signed some stuff for her and came back to me and I asked him to sign by his head also. Then we had this silly conversation:
me: (pointing to poster) These dolls [yes, I'm fully aware they're puppets and not dolls. But this wasn't even the dumbest thing I said to him] are sooo cute!
Flans: Oh, thanks. My wife made them.
me: (impressed) Really?
Flans: Yeah, she did it all herself.
me: She...made the glasses?
Flans: (rolling his eyes) No, she didn't make the glasses. (pause; with mild sarcasm) She didn't make the buttons either.
me: (chastened) The hair is perfect!

I'm such an idiot. hobbitgrrl and I laughed about the "she made the glasses" thing all the way home, at least until she fell asleep. :P

Anyway she got her stuff signed and a photo and we paused to get all our stuff together before heading out. Marty was still sitting there near where the stage had been, reading a book. I was very curious as to what he was reading (it turned out to be a book on poker, but hobbitgrrl talked to him more about that than I did). And that was about it. It was a good trip.

Next stop: Madison! I think I've followed this itinerary before...