I don't care for concerts and I've only been to a handfull in my life (well, excluding the ones I worked when I worked for the FAU (Florida Atlantic University) [1] auditorium stage crew) but there are a few bands (half a dozen) that I might make an exception and actually attend a concert.
I'm not sure what I dislike about concerts—the crowds of people, the huge venues (although I've only been to once arena concert—the rest have been at clubs) or the opening acts (none of the opening acts I've seen have been worth it—in fact, for once concert there were two opening acts; the first sucked, and the second one sucked loudly—fortunately the actual band we came for more than made up for the horrible opening acts) or the fact that concerts never start at the time printed upon the ticket.
And last night, there was an hour wait (tickets said 7:00 pm, things didn't start until 8:00 pm) and the opening act was … eh. Half the friends I went with found the opening act (forgot his name, but he played a ukelele and most of the songs seemed to have the same melody but different lyrics) and the other half hated the guy. Mercifully he only played for half an hour.
Half an hour later—
They Might Be Giants [2]
—took to the stage.
Woot!
[They Might Be Giants, but they seem much bigger to me] [3] [4] [Confetti, shot during the song James K. Polk] [5] [6]
You'll have to excuse the pictures—those are the best ones that my cell phone took during the concert.
It's been awhile since I last saw them in concert—90? 91? 92?—back then it was just the Johns. This time it was the Johns and the Dans (although the drummer wasn't a Dan, oddly enough). And since it's been awhile, about half the material was new to me, which was nice.
But oddly enough, of what I consider their “signature” songs, Particle Man, Instanbul (was once Contantinople) and Birdhouse in your Soul, they didn't play Particle Man. Minor nit-pick though.
And they were certainly worth the horror of the ukelele playing opening act.
[3] /boston/2006/05/01/thumb.tmbg.jpg
[4] /boston/2006/05/01/tmbg.jpg
[5] /boston/2006/05/01/thumb.jamespolk.jpg
![[3] /boston/2006/05/01/thumb.tmbg.jpg](/gemini.conman.org/boston/2006/05/01/thumb.tmbg.jpg){kind=link}
![[4] /boston/2006/05/01/tmbg.jpg](/gemini.conman.org/boston/2006/05/01/tmbg.jpg){kind=link}
![[5] /boston/2006/05/01/thumb.jamespolk.jpg](/gemini.conman.org/boston/2006/05/01/thumb.jamespolk.jpg){kind=link}
![[6] /boston/2006/05/01/jamespolk.jpg](/gemini.conman.org/boston/2006/05/01/jamespolk.jpg){kind=link}