Concert Review: They Might Be Giants @ 9:30 Club (12/9/24)

They Might Be Giants (Photo Credit: Jon Uleis)

“It’s the third sold out night at 930 Club! What’s up with that!?!” – John Flansburgh

They Might Be Giants (TMBG) came to DC with the gift of music that Gen X and their children could not resist. TMBG performed three straight sold out shows at the 9:30 Club, and if the third and final show on December 9th was any indication, the revelers all sought the nostalgia of certain alternative rock songs we grew up with, along with the promise of witty banter and dry jokes. Few left wanting more.

It would have been really something if they could give more. As it was, they performed 32 songs (and one playback, which we’ll get to).

TMBG has such a rich and diverse catalog of music, including a range of albums for children, a podcast, a free Dial-A-Song app, etc., that it would take a few healthy whale lifetimes to fully contemplate and master the totality. But we don’t have that kind of time, so let’s narrow our journey down to a few paragraphs and take the rest of that time to do good in the world. In the form of listening to music. And making jokes.

TMBG decided to focus their attention for this show on one specific album, with a bevy of brass horns, in the form of 1992’s Apollo 18 (via Elektra Records), which boasts an impressive (or aggressive?) 17 songs and 21 parts to “Fingertips” (where 10 might have been enough). They performed 12 of those songs on March 9th. The album was named after the cancelled Apollo 18 mission that same year. 1992 was also the ‘International Space Year’ for which NASA declared TMBG as the official musical ambassadors. Whatever aliens they were in contact with that year in their official capacity as ambassadors, are (presumably) not the same ones dropping drones* on us willy nilly.

John Flansburgh (vocals, rhythm guitar) described what we were in for, “We have two sets, with a spotlight on Apollo 18. An album with songs we barely remember and some songs we barely rehearsed. It will be startling for you!” They took no opportunities to skimp on the driest of dad jokes, and we were here for it. Yet, what was truly startling was the amount of people crammed into the 9:30 Club, even utilizing space on the balconies one could reliably use for a breather from the bustling crowds. No such breathers today.

TMBG has released 23 studio albums, and almost 40 more releases that include live albums, compilation albums, and EPs. Their most recent release, and a main focus of the tour, is 2024’s Beast of Horns live album compilation. They first formed in 1982 as the duo of John F., and John Linnell (vocals, keyboards, accordion, banjo, and anything else you have handy). Later, at the time they were producing their fourth album (again Apollo 18), they recruited a backing band, which has seen some turnover, but is currently comprised of Marty Beller (drums), Dan Miller (guitar), and Danny Weinkauf (bass). And since this tour also honors their latest live album focused on horns, they had to have the fine trio of Stan Harrison (sax), Dan Levine (trombone), and Mark Pender (trumpet) as the Giant horn section.

Despite the fact that they were performing mostly Apollo 18 songs in the first set, two of the songs I enjoyed most were actually from 2021’s BOOK, which I haven’t heard previously. They kicked the whole show off with “Synopsis for Latecomers”, and then “Moonbeam Rays” was sprinkled in between long, spacey bouts of Apollo 18. “Synopsis for Latecomers” is about exactly what it sounds like, an ominous overview of what happened during the COVID-19 quarantine from the narrow view of a conspiracy theorist, because frankly why didn’t you already know? “Moonbeam Rays” speaks to telling your significant other off, because you gave them plenty of warnings to change and they didn’t.

Going back to Apollo 18, with “I Palindrome I” we were informed that it was written, incredibly, by the whale on the cover of the album (the whale is battling a giant squid in space, obviously). And just when that, incredibly, started to make sense, they burst our bubble ‘claiming’ it was just a joke.

And then before the “Dinner Bell” both Johns talked about what they did that day in DC. John L. toured some museums and the National Gallery of Art, while John F. went to CVS because, ‘I bought drugs. I need my drugs in order to use them.’**

Towards the end of the set they did something that we didn’t know we needed, which John F. described for our incredulous ears, ‘We are going to play a song sonically in reverse, because we know some of you among us are Satanists. We will sing it backwards and record it, then play it back, thus breaking you from Satan’s spell. We cannot tell you the danger we are putting you in.’ This little breaking of Satan’s spell is called “stelluB” (this is how TMBG refers to the backwards version of “Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love” which they started doing live in 2020 as part of the 30th Anniversary Tour of their seminal 1990 album, Flood). I think it worked, Satan only messed with the 9:30 Club crowd a few more times (mostly in the form of tall people blocking our views).

Aside from the eight musicians on stage (the horn section was periodically off and on, but never musically), they also employed a backdrop screen showing art and videos of relevant and magical (presumably) things. Everything from washing machines, to asteroids, to skeletal fish, to mountains, to themselves, to a giant eye, to probably everything except the kitchen sink (honestly, they may have put up a sink that I missed). The stage lights loomed over us, periodically blinding us, and looked like a jet fighter’s air intake (an inlet), raging hot and ready to blast them off back towards space when they were finally done entertaining us.

The first set ended with “Brontosaurus” (also from BOOK), with a scrolling hillscape and hot air balloons on screen, all meant to look like animated paper. The song speaks to the term ‘dinosaur’ that refers to something old or extinct (like a band from the 1980’s?) and is a bit of metaphor within a metaphor, as the term ‘Brontosaurus’ has had recent debates about its classification in the dinosaur world. So a reference to something obsolete that is itself something obsolete. Don’t worry, I still use Brontosaurus when describing long-necked dinosaurs, and despite their willingness to open the debate, cannot classify TMBG as obsolete. Yet. Not after the show they put on.

They departed for 20 minutes, giving us time to pretend like we could take a breather, to return with the official drop of their “stelluB” recording of “Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love”. Satan was not amused. Tall people grew taller.

Later they dropped some excellent hooks in “Man, It’s So Loud in Here”, and I agreed, and still do.

Midway through the second set they played the classic “The Mesopotamians”, which fully embraces the vibe of The Beatle’s “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”. Yet it is a lighter song set during the era of the second Iraq war, about four Mesopotamian kings rocking their own band and offering hope. John L. gave us the low-down, ‘I can’t explain it, but it [this song] was from a show about a mythical band, but no one else saw this band but me.’

Just before they ended the second set with “Birdhouse in Your Soul”, which is arguably one of the great reasons people came to see their show, John F. got conspiratorial for their last foray into Apollo 18 (a couple tips of “Fingertips”), ‘We’re only going to give 80 percent for the rest of the show, altering our usual 90-95 percent commitment [to the fans].’

They returned for two encores, encompassing three songs. The first, and most obvious, was “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)”. There’s a fun level of absurdity in the lyrics and hook, and it was great to hear it live for a change. Yes, this was my first time seeing them live.

Then they dropped “Doctor Worm” and left us for another brief spell before closing the evening with “The End of the Tour”. It wasn’t the end of the tour, but it was the end of our worthy time with them in DC.

For those thirsting for more TMBG knowledge, you can also learn so much from their wiki site (if you have that kind of time), titled ‘This Might Be a Wiki’. You will forever know everything.

Go forth and do good.

* Drones are in the news for stupid reasons folks, let’s keep it light. In tone, but mostly in attempted humor.

** What happened next was the dictionary definition of ‘wide spread chortling.’

Setlist: Set 1