Y'know, the whole getting up early to go to a rock show thing is just...not right. And the fact that it was already like 90 degrees by 9:30 in the morning when we picked up k1cup did not bode well for the rest of the day. But we made our way over to the Tower City Amphitheater, a little too early as usual; as we waited to be let in to the KidsFest we heard them soundchecking Fibber Island and...I forget what else. All I needed to know was Fibber Island, though; I adore that song.

This wasn't exactly the best day of our trip, either; besides the heat (a recurring theme), there were all the awful things that were scheduled before TMBG were to come on. By far the worst was the performing children—I never figured out exactly what they were auditioning for (frankly, I didn't want to know, and the little girl dressed and made up like Jon-Benét Ramsay totally creeped me out) but it was definitely something I knew I wouldn't want to be seeing when they'd chosen their winners. I guess they only had the choice of about five songs to sing, all of which were horrible, although they wouldn't have been as horrible if the children had been more talented. We took turns leaving the amphitheater to escape the awful, awful singing for a few minutes at a time. The air-conditioned bathrooms were a popular getaway spot; also, there was a tent where we could plant some herbs and take them home with us (which reminds me—hobbitgrrl, I have your lavender plant. I'll get it to you when you're back from Louisville).

So we survived that, and the somewhat pathetic jazz dude, and then another children's band (Justin Roberts and the Not Ready for Naptime Players) which wasn't too bad, and finally the rocking started. Man, there were too many children around and it was too hot.

After Bed Bed Bed Flans paused the show.
JF: The photographer would like to take some pictures of kids wearing orange hands. (he throws some foam fingers into the audience) Now kids, the photographer from the newspaper would like you to put on the orange hands, and our manager would like you to make sure the "They Might Be Giants" part is showing.

I still love Fibber Island even though Flans never, ever gets the words right. Ditto for Where Do They Make Balloons? Everybody cheered wildly when Danny came up to the front, and Linnell said, "People seem to like the songs that John and I didn't write, which hurts our feelings."

Fake Believe was a new one for me...it was okay.

And then there was Alphabet Lost and Found. I can't even begin to try to describe Marty's goofiness. But when he came up to the mic Flans asked, "Would you like to say hello to the people?" and Marty got up there and bellowed "PEOPLE! HELLO!!" That kind of sums up his performance style. My favorite part was toward the end when he started running around the stage harassing everybody else in the band asking "Where they gonna go without their letters? How can they survive without their letters?" and they all played along, shrugging and looking confused (but laughing).

They kept the show moving at a pretty brisk pace; they were, I think, pressed for time since there were still about four hundred child singers that still had to compete. They ended up cutting three songs from the written setlist. So the set was disappointingly but not unexpectedly short, about 45 minutes, and there was after all going to be another a couple of hours later (and—of course we didn't know this in advance, but the second show would have a substantially different setlist). But in the meantime we would have to sit through a bunch more of those damn children...

So there was more waiting. I was reading a magazine, trying not to listen to the dreadful singing. That kind of helped, but earplugs would have been better. We saw Dan walking by; he looked over at the stage to see what was happening and the expression of disgusted horror on his face reflected exactly what we were all feeling. The other really weird thing that happened was that Chubby Checker came out to perform. I could not believe that it was really him; frankly, I figured he was more than old enough to be dead by now, yet this guy looked pretty good and his voice was fine. Oddly, although he had a guitarist with him, he seemed to be singing over a CD of his original songs, I mean, the original songs with his original vocal still audible on them. (And, I know, Corn Mo did that for his Havina Gila Monster song, but he couldn't bring his band with him.)

So Chubby Checker (I guess it really was him) sang the Limbo Rock song for about an hour. Okay, maybe it was only twenty minutes. Or ten. It sure seemed like a long time. They were using a mic stand for a limbo stick and this long line of kids was limboing under it and it just wouldn't end. We spotted Dan (who was wearing his St Louis sunglasses again) and Danny sitting over in the wings, checking out the show, and then afterwards Chubby seemed to be shooting the breeze backstage with some of Justin Roberts's Not Ready for Naptime Players.

Just before Their second set was to start, a huge thunderstorm broke out. The amphitheater was covered with a big tent-like thing, but because the stage was at one end, it wasn't entirely sheltered and the rain was pouring down on it. This was rather worrisome, but after a bit Andy came out and started draping towels over the backs of the amps, while Will carefully arranged a big black sheet of plastic over the board so he could still use it while hopefully not being electrocuted. And the show started after all, only a little bit late.

So they got up there and Flans was all ready to go, but Marty's drums were wet so they paused and sang Kumbaya while Marty and Andy toweled off the drums. Then they were off, again not dawdling through the set. I'm really liking E Eats Everything, especially since Flans sings it "E eats everything—like children." Also, Dan's throwing some crazy falsetto singing in at the end that greatly amuses me.

Danny's second performance of Where Do They Make Balloons? was totally cute. He hadn't gotten the words quite right the first time (nor had he the previous four times I'd seen him sing this song; he seems to have a lot of trouble with the french fries and turkey), but this time he was perfect up until the point where he substituted "I got the words right this time" for "they can't fly but they can dance." 'Cause, y'know, technically he didn't get the words right really.

Marty was also a big hit the second time around. Flans was still having trouble getting his parts right; where before we had seen him rushing way too fast through his spoken bits, this time he was way too slow on the speech that ends "a heretofore unknown location to be referred to as..." Marty, constrained by the backing track, was forced to start singing over him and Flans shot him the most hilarious "quit stepping on my shit" look; but at the end of the song he still declared Marty the winner of the They Might Be Giants American Idol contest.

During the Famous Polka Flans held his guitar out to the audience, but he had to tell the people what to do before they would play it. (We were too far back to reach it, otherwise we would happily have led the way.)

After that came what was, for me, by far the most exciting part of the show: Flans started hyping up Dan on the acoustic guitar and I realized that this moment was, in fact, the return of the solo guitar intro to Istanbul. You may recall that in Detroit Dan had told me that that particular gimmick was played out and intimated that he would never do it again; I was very glad that he turned out to be a liar.

After that was a brief Jazz Waltz and then New York City and then it was all over. There was an encore marked on the setlist "if they really want it!" but I guess we didn't want it enough. Well, we five specifically really wanted it, but all those people who started leaving immediately were probably a more persuasive bloc and we didn't get the encore.

So that was it. We got setlists and headed off, not without making the obligatory stop at the soundboard to visit Dan. I particularly wanted to thank him for the Istanbul intro; he said Flans had put that in there and he didn't even know until he saw the setlist. But you know, I don't care how it came back; the important thing is that it did, at least one last time. But really I honestly don't believe it's gone forever, no matter what Dan would prefer; I think Flans likes it at least as much as I do and as long as Flans wants it it's going to stay.

Anyway. We also discussed the total weirdness of that Chubby Checker business, and Dan admired our fortitude in sticking around all through "that god-awful singing." Oh, the things we do for They Might Be Giants. I don't regret any of it.

We finished off the day with a visit to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, but I was completely exhausted at that point and I could barely even appreciate the special exhibit on the history of Les Paul's electric guitars. We went back to cptmoll's. We ate food. We slept. And it was all good.

Pictures, videos, mp3s all ready. And that's it! (Well, until tomorrow.) Thanks again everyone, too, too many to name, hope to meet all of you again sometime in my travels...

* foreword
* St Louis
* Indy
* Detroit
* Cleveland – Odeon
> Cleveland – KidsFest
* Lebowski Fest