They Might Be Giants started their live shows celebrating the 30th anniversary of their third album (and major label debut) 'Flood' back in 2020.
However, a few hiccups along the way (notably a pandemic and a car accident) led to delays and the rescheduling of their 2023 Australian tour – until now.Following their DIY cottage industry beginnings in the early '80s, gradually leading to mainstream exposure, by the '90s the original duo of the Johns (Flansburgh and Linnell) had cultivated a dedicated following, before delving into other projects that the average fan may not even be aware they were part of (although there is that ubiquitous 'Malcom In The Middle' theme song).
The Johns have long been supplemented by current touring (and recording) collaborators Danny Weinkauf (bass), Dan Miller (guitar) and Marty Beller (drums), and are accompanied by the Tricerachops Horns consisting of Dan Levine (trombone, euphonium), Mark Pender (trumpet) and Stan Harrison (saxophone), swelling the band's numbers on this current, near sold-out run of shows.
This tour, promoted as 'Flood, Book and Beyond', sees the band playing the former album in entirety (although a couple of songs are pre-recorded intros to the two sets), but the second billed 'Book' hardly gets a look in with only three songs performed, a couple more than the remaining one song apiece from some of their other albums.
Additionally, 'Flood' is performed out of sequence and interspersed among their back catalogue, leaving the expectant audience guessing until the end in a set analogous to a game of snakes and ladders.
After diversifying and pivoting their interlinked careers as required, the Johns have maintained a longevity over 40 years unlike many of their peers from the '80s and '90s, and while their youthful boyishness hasn't entirely waned now they're in their mid-60s, they have managed to maintain a relatively youthful audience.
Perhaps their style of (for want of a better description) 'geek rock' (a term Flansburgh puts down during this evening's show) is what attracts these post generations, making it okay to be an outsider; the freaks and geeks are attracted to what at first might appear as novelty rock like moths to a flame.
An example of this could be Linnell perhaps having done nearly as much for making the piano accordion 'cool' as the more higher profile Weird Al Yankovic.
Tonight's first set (2 October) opens with the Johns onstage alone (similar to their early shows) performing their cover of 'Istanbul (Not Constantinople)'.
Linnell sings and plays his "main squeeze" accordion before the song takes a turn into abstract a cappella, with his faux guttural throat-singing and Flansburgh's higher pitched vocalese before gradually returning to a more familiar style; and in the final moments, the duo are joined by the rest of their band including an early appearance by the Tricerachops Horns.
There are fans in the audience singing along to every single word to every song, but I confess a certain unfamiliarity to the greater back catalogue, having had my mind elsewhere while the Johns have continued to maintain their musical output in the past 25 years since I recall last having attended one of their shows (although I may have seen them in the intervening years since their mid-'90s heyday but I just can't remember).
Apart from the aforementioned set opener, the moments that standout are a sequence of songs starting with the stop-start pop of 'Snail Shell' paired with the garage rock of 'Twisting', and 'Your Racist Friend' (with a mid-song cameo by trumpet player Mark Pender taking the opportunity to upstage his employers), before full advantage is taken of the horn section for the delightful, almost classical performance of 'Shoehorn With Teeth', and the swing jazz performance of 'Let Me Tell You About My Operation'.
The sea shanty 'Women & Men' precedes 'Stellub', a work in progress backwards performance of 'Saffire Bullets Of Pure Love' which is video-recorded and then later played back 'forwards' to open the second set. This first set closes with 'Doctor Worm' injecting a feeling of melancholy to contrast the humour and absurd joy that preceded it.
The second show of the tour (originally the first before selling out and then a second show was added for Adelaide on the preceding evening) has a nearly completely revised set list from the night before, with only 'Doctor Worm' and the songs from 'Flood' and 'Book' repeated across both nights; so if you were lucky enough to be in attendance at both then the band were certainly making it worth your while.
In the second set, the instrumental Cajun styled 'The Famous Polka' leads into the fan favourite sing-along of 'Particle Man' before the brief, carnivalesque 'Minimum Wage'.
A few songs later we are treated to early classic 'Ana Ng' and later, again the bar room honky tonk of 'Lucky Ball & Chain' demonstrating the versatility of They Might Be Giants, a band not willing to stay too long in any particular musical style.
Honourable mention must be made of the playful, controlled chaos of the fully assembled band demonstrated during their rendition of 'Spy' with first Linnell and then Flansburgh 'conducting' the other band members' improvisations and even including the audience in the performance.
There is a kind of respite in the gentle 'Road Movie To Berlin' although containing occasional musical outbursts before a welcome 'Birdhouse In Your Soul' closes this second set. A first encore opens appropriately with the musical advert masquerading as a song 'Theme From Flood', followed by the metaphysically lyrical 'Dead'.
Although the audience loved it and lapped it, I felt the cover of Chumbawamba's Tubthumping was a detracting, extraneous late addition to open a second encore, but the band redeemed themselves in their closing performance of the evening with the cover/ mash-up 'The Guitar (The Lion Sleeps Tonight)'.
This show and others on the current tour have certainly been a long time coming for some and it was well worth the wait. Let's hope the exuberance that Flansburgh and Linnell and the rest of the band have shared at this show can be maintained for the rest of the shows to come.
