On Thursday I went to the They Might Be Giants concert in Vancouver. It was at a small venue between the West End and Yaletown, Richards on Richards.
Tickets were extraordinarily reasonable at $20 CDN. That becomes less reasonable once you factor in the cost of plane travel and a hotel room in Vancouver, but still....
The show was great. They opened with "Twistin'" from Flood and played a lot of my old favorites like "Birdhouse in Your Soul" and "I Palindrome I" ("The song my mother hates...," said John Flansburgh). I kind of lost track of the band after Apollo 18 so I had never heard "Doctor Worm" or "Why Does the Sun Shine? (The Sun is a Mass of Incandescent Gas)" before.
They played two encores, then begged off -- apparently they had to be in Portland the next day -- closing with "The Guitar". Which is a farewell song ("In the spaceship / the silver spaceship / the lion waves goodbye...") -- I hadn't realized.
Anyway, that was great and I would do it again and if you read this and care about the Giants, here's their tour schedule:
8/14 San Francisco, CA, Fillmore
8/15 Santa Cruz, CA, Catalyst
8/17 Anaheim, CA, House Of Blues
8/18 Los Angeles, CA, House Of Blues
8/20 Tucson, AZ, City Limits