Who are They Might Be Giants? Their name is presumably inspired by the 1971 film starring George C. Scott and Joanne Woodward. The title refers to Don Quixote mistaking windmills for giants. I saw the movie decades ago. The IMDB synopsis is:
"In a Manhattan psychiatric
hospital, a man convinced that he is Sherlock Holmes is treated by a female
doctor who happens to be named Watson."
A review on
IMDB says "This sweet, goofy, and fairly romantic film asks the
questions 'Whose reality is right?' and 'Does it really
matter?'"
I say that many They Might Be Giants (TMBG) songs are goofy,
some are sweet, and some are even romantic. The lyrics and the music are quite
clever and sophisticated. Some of the lyrics can be paranoid, others like
science fiction or Kurt Vonnegut, others absurd or like the writing of Donald
Barthelme; others are just quirky; some seem drug-referential or drug-inspired;
some are straightforward. They are humorous, but I wouldn’t call them
comedy rock.
John Linnell and John Flansburgh started TMBG as a duo in Brooklyn in 1982, Flansburgh on guitar and Linnell on accordion, keyboards, and assorted other instruments. They performed as a duo and sometimes used backing tapes or drum machines. In 1983, they began a service called Dial-a-Song, advertised in local papers. People called and got an answering machine which played them (part of) a song. Eventually, they put out a self-titled album in 1986, heard on some college radio stations. Their second album, Lincoln, had a song that broke through to commercial FM radio, such as WXRT in Chicago, where I first heard its single, "Ana Ng." I bought the album and enjoyed it immensely. Their next album, 1990's Flood, became their classic, including "Birdhouse in Your Soul," "Particle Man," and a cover of "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)." It would be the album they would later base a tour on, playing the entire album.
I'll not list their 24 studio albums released over four decades, nor their dozens of live albums, EPs, or compilations, many including previously unreleased songs. They played 31 songs from 15 different records at the 2026 show I saw.
In 2002, they won the Grammy for Best Film or Television Theme for "Boss of Me" for the Malcolm in the Middle TV comedy, which you may have seen or heard. Also, in 2002, a documentary film appeared about them, Gigantic (A Tale of Two Johns). They have also put out several children's albums like No! and Here Come the ABCs. In 2003, I saw the band perform at Naperville’s “Last Fling” with family: Cathleen, Conor, Liam, Brendan, Barry, and Yvonne.
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| They Might Be Giants at The Vic: John Linnell at the keyboard, John Flansburgh on guitar in front of the drummer. |
On this tour, they have a three-piece horn section, in addition to the core five-piece band. They play two sets with no opening band. The first set highlights one of six of their first eight albums, and the second set is more varied. The featured album would not be announced in advance. I know all of their albums fairly well, with the exception of their fifth album, John Henry, which was on the list of options. I had found it a difficult album, which I attributed to their changing from a two-person band to a "real" five-piece rock band. To prepare for the concert, I listened to John Henry more than some of the other albums, which turned out to be prescient because that was the album they featured. Also, I found that it was not a bad album at all.
At the concert, they started with nine songs from John Henry. The first,
"Subliminal," I found a little confusing, because it has overlapping
vocals (kind of subliminal). However, I knew this, and it seemed that the
entire audience was familiar with all of the songs, and it is the first
song on the album. The second song, "Snail Shell," was very strong,
and struck me as a better song to open with. What I love about TMBG is that who
else would have a chorus like "I want to thank you for putting me back in
my snail shell." Some fans put mental energy into lyric interpretations
(see https://tmbw.net/wiki
for this song), but the lyrics often just make me smile.
There was much enjoyable banter, easy in the way 44 years can make it. At one point, John F picked up the John Henry album cover from a guitar stand and mentioned that they
were featuring it in the first set and handed it to someone in the non-mosh
pit, deadpanning "I'm gonna need that back." (He didn't.) Later, just before
beginning a song, the drummer had to adjust the top cymbal of the hi-hat,
making the band wait. John F said to John L that reminded him of a conversation
the band was having about momentum. John L said he associated the band more with
inertia. Later, they brought up the house lights to determine the audience
beard-to-glasses ratio (they would wait until the third night in Chicago to
complete the data set). Another conversation involved meeting with Disney,
where every department, including Disney on Ice, introduced themselves. I can
only assume that might have to do with their children’s albums.
The set continued with “Unrelated Thing,” a slower song about miscommunication, then the upbeat Latin-tinged horn-heavy “No One Knows My Plan,” in which the protagonist sings from a prison cell, asserting that it’s part of his plan, but is clearly delusional. Several fans on the tmbg.net Interpretations page think the narrator is a murderer. The next highlight for me was "Spy," which seems like disjointed modern jazz on the album, but was great live, with different band members conducting (see clip below).
After the John Henry section, they explained the next song, "stelluB," which is Bullets spelled backwards, short for the song “Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love” from Flood. The band performs the song musically and lyrically backwards, then at the beginning of the second set, will play a video of that performance backwards to see how well they did. (The result turns out to be mixed, but thoroughly enjoyable.) John F jokes that “People who brought friends might be worried about that now…”
According to the Chicago
Sun-Times, John F said dryly at this point on the previous night:
“Ladies and gentlemen, the most
loathed words in contemporary legacy act rock music: We’re gonna play some
songs off our new album.”
But that was an unnecessary warning. This crowd knew the
five new songs from The World is to Dig album and the Eyeball EP spread across the rest of the night. "Get Down" was
great and well received in the second set. Despite its title, and its groove
and funky horns, it was not about dancing, but about an alien warning to duck
and cover. Another song from the new album that they played was “Hit the Ground,”
which is not about “hitting the deck,” but about a broken heart.
A song from their 2021 album, Book, also rocked the place. "Synopsis for Latecomers"
has a government functionary trying to calm a concerned populace, backed by
hard-hitting horns and guitars:
I assure you there's a very simple
explanation
If you'd only be patient...
Okay, you're asking how container ships were found
Abandoned in the desert sands, covered in snakes
And who composed the ransom note
And taped it to the face of the equestrian monument?
You'll get your answers, all in due time...
There were people singing along to it.
They finished the first set with “Where You Eyes Don’t Go,” a
paranoid nightmare ditty ending in a “Town Without Pity”-type vamp, from their
second album.
The second set began with the “stelluB” video, followed by “The
Mesopotamians,” a poppy, harmony-laden tune wherein The Mesopotamians is a band
made up of Sargon, Hammurabi, Ashurbanipal, and Gilgamesh: “The kingdom where
we secretly reign (And no one's ever heard of our band), The land where we
invisibly rule.”
A few songs later, they played “Man, It's So Loud in Here,” a
song with surreal verses and a funny chorus. It was unintentionally ironic, in
that I was glad that I had ear filters in:
Baby, check this out, I've got
something to say
Man, it's so loud in here
When they stop the drum machine, And I can think again
I'll remember what it was
“Can't Keep Johnny Down” wowed the crowd. “Doctor Worm”
ended the second set strongly after introducing the band members (see clip below).
The first encore was “Number Three” from their first album: "There's just two songs in me, and this is Number Three" - ironically because they've written hundreds of songs by now. Followed by “Till My Head Falls Off”: “Though it may not be a long way off, I won't be done until my head falls off.” Like me, the two Johns are in their mid-60s, and are not stopping yet.
The second encore was the sing-along "Birdhouse in Your
Soul." A catchy song, but an unreliable narrator – is the blue canary
friend or foe? Should you make a little birdhouse for him in your soul?
All in all, a good time was had by all. I was heartened to
see that there were fans of all ages there. Many were younger than my 34-year-old
son who was with me, and were not with their parents (see image below).
For the complete setlist, see setlist.fm. This amazing website also has the 2003 Naperville TMBG setlist. It even has the setlist one of the first concerts I ever saw - in 1975: Led Zeppelin.
