They Might Be Giants at Brooklyn Bowl Nashville

By James Bilbo

Not many bands have an accordion player. Fewer have a euphonium player. Even fewer have a full brass trio. Only They Might Be Giants has all of them at once.

Before I can continue this review, I have to admit something to you, dear reader. Despite going to and reviewing the They Might Be Giants concert that took place at the Nashville Brooklyn Bowl this November 14th, I did not go into the concert knowing many songs by the Johns. My knowledge of them didn’t stray much further than "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” and the theme song from the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse show. As I walked into the sold out show, surrounded by people wearing merch branded with album covers I didn’t recognize, hats quoting lyrics, and even a guy with a sign looking for fellow TMBG fans to hang out with, I felt a little out of my depth.

I work at a live music venue, so I’m no stranger to watching 3+ hours worth of music from bands or artists I’ve never heard of, but some of my best friends, both currently and in the past, are huge TMBG fans and have hyped them up for years. I wasn’t worried about whether or not I’d have a fun time, I was sure I would, but would they live up to the hype? I might not even recognize a single one of their songs.

I was immediately proven wrong as drummer Marty Beller rushed onto the stage to pound out the opening drum beat to “Synopsis For Latecomers”.

For the life of me, I can’t remember where I first heard the song, nor why it stayed in the deep recess of my memory for possibly years, but as the frontmen John Flansburgh and John Linnell, joined by guitarist Dan Miller and bassist Danny Weinkauf, more and more of the song came back to me (oddly, this was also the moment that I remembered I was watching the band responsible for “Boss of Me”, the theme song from Malcolm in the Middle).

The amount of personality the Johns and the backing band had from stage presence alone was astounding. Most of the vocal mics were wireless, allowing for members of the band (mainly Flansburgh) to roam around the stand mid-song, giving a very dynamic look to the stage whenever the large projector behind them wasn’t doing the same with a video. The introduction of the horn section was a highlight of the night as trombonist Dan Levine, saxophonist Stan Harrison, and trumpeter Mark Pender marched in formation to the front of the stage. Similar to the vocal mics, the brass mics were entirely wireless and were clipped onto the instruments themselves, giving the brass players full freedom of movement.

After that instantly engaging introduction, the Johns took a moment to engage with the crowd, showcasing one of the more under-appreciated aspects of live entertainment: stage banter. Little gags like claiming to be opening for themselves and shooing Miller off the stage clue even outsiders like me into the band’s dynamic with themselves and the fans. Even as they introduced that they would be playing songs from their album Apollo 18 for the first half of the show, an album I’m not familiar with, I still felt connected to the excited energy tingling throughout the room.

When I’m at a show, I love to get lost in the music and let the songs blend together into one continuous experience, which TMBG more than succeeded in doing for the first half of the show. I had a few more “Hey! I actually know this!” moments, such as during “I Palindrome I” and “The Guitar (The Lion Sleeps Tonight)”, which only added to the experience. 

All throughout, the wild energy of the band kept building and building, climaxing with the chaotic “Fingertips”, which in the album version is 21 different songs, all split into individual sections, each less than a minute long, with all different kinds of instrumentation, dynamics, and even mixing techniques, almost all of which contrast each other in such a way that the suite sounds hectic yet somehow coherent. With this context, you’d think there’s no way they would be able to replicate the dynamics in a live format, even with the full might of eight musicians.

You would be extremely wrong.

Somehow, magically, the band was able to perfectly replicate the push and pull chaos of “Fingertips” on stage with no backing tracks. And then immediately after, just to flex a little more on how in control the band was of their maniacal schemes, they played an entire song of theirs (“Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love”) in reverse, promising to show the re-reversed version before the second half of the show started to prove they were actually playing it in reverse.

After a fantastic rendition of “Doctor Worm” (another “oh wait, I do know this” song for me), the “opening” band left the stage, leaving the audience and me waiting in anticipation for more.

A brief humorous side note: one of the songs that played during the intermission was “tv off” by Kendrick Lamar, and it was a very fun experience listening to a 1,000+ dorky TMBG fans yell “MUSTAAAAARD” in unison.

Yes. I was one of them.

Before returning to the stage, the re-reversed version of “Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love” was played, though some eagle eyed viewers may have noticed that the stage in the video and the stage before us weren’t exactly the same. As the band explained once they were back out, something in the recording had “f***ed up”, and they had to resort to using a recording from earlier in the tour. The Johns took it in stride, though, joking about how the entirety of backstage was in a tizzy over the footage.

The second half of the show was just as (if not more) exciting than the first, even though I didn’t recognize as many songs throughout it. One particular standout track, and one that I’ve had in my regular music rotation since the concert, was “Withered Hope”, which used the horns to their full extent to create the hectic energy that carries the song forward. The blaring brass mixed with the bebop stylings of the drums carried the same weight and coolness of a thrilling spy chase theme.

“Ana Ng” and “Birdhouse in Your Soul” were two more standouts, particularly with Linnell’s keyboard work, which included some complex organ work throughout “Birdhouse”.

After “Birdhouse”, the band left the stage… and then came back on stage about a minute later for an encore, as is pretty standard nowadays.

While “Particle Man” was yet another “they did this one, too?” song for me, “Let Me Tell You About My Operation” really stole the show during the encore, giving the brass section one last opportunity to make the crowd swoon with their jazzy stylings. 

Finally, after “Particle Man”, the band left the stage for the final time… and then one by one returned, starting once again with drummer Marty Beller and ending with the Johns taking their guitar and accordion to burst out into a lively rendition of “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)”, ending with an extended trumpet solo with not one, not two, not four, but five fake-out endings before the entire band joined in on a final, loud chord that left the entire audience, and myself, cheering for minutes on end.

When I go to a concert, I want to come out of the experience feeling like I gained new knowledge of both the artist themselves and their musical and visual presentation. That night, coming out of the Brooklyn Bowl and onto the streets of downtown Nashville, I not only gained exactly that, but discovered I knew much more than I thought about the legendary They Might Be Giants.