A week later and it's like a lifetime ago, but let's see what I can remember.

Okay. unsupervised came into town Monday night and Tuesday morning we went around to pick up hobbitgrrl, ready for six days on the road together. I have to say before I get into the rest of it that I thought the trip was, just logistically, nearly perfect. Like, we never got anywhere too late (there's no such thing as too early on these trips) and we didn't hit any really terrible construction or get any traffic tickets and we always had a nice place to stay, and most importantly, I had really excellent traveling companions that I enjoyed spending time with. That's important when you're trapped in a car with each other for 4-5 hours a day. So, thanks, girls!

Anyway, we got down to St Louis in plenty of time and went over to the Pageant. I've said this many a time and I'll continue to say it, I love the Pageant because they let over-21s in before the young'uns. So we got there a few minutes before the bar opened, and as a reward for being the biggest dorks there we received special laminated passes guaranteeing our right of first entry into the room and the privilege of sitting at a special table marked with this sign:



which declared us the "first entry winners" but which as hobbitgrrl accurately pointed out, really meant we were the biggest losers in the room. :P

Not that we minded, since after the requisite hours of waiting we were indeed admitted first. We settled in (front row along the barrier, slightly to stage right) for more waiting. The pit stayed nearly empty for a long, long time. A lot of people were sitting down (and I've never understood why people show up so early and then just want to sit, but—anyway) but it also turned out that they weren't letting anybody under 21 into the pit at all. Wow, they really hate those minors down in St Louis. I'm glad I'm old.

I'm starting to run a lot more into people I've met at previous shows. This time it was a girl and her friend whom I'd stood next to the last time I was at the Pageant. That was more than three years ago but she still remembered that I'm from Chicago and in grad school...weird! Hee. She'd actually been at the St Louis show last summer as well, but at the other side of the stage from me then. Also during the wait I was jumping up to try to get a better view of the stage (it was quite a high stage) and I banged my knees pretty hard on the barrier. I gotta quit getting knee injuries at these shows.

Finally it was time for Corn Mo. After seeing him four times last summer, I thought I was over him, so I was prepared to be not very entertained, but he came out and was just amazing. He had some new raps and some new songs and a new keyboard and new pants and shoes, and I was thoroughly charmed and entertained. Thank you Corn Mo.

After that it took about forever for TMBG's set to start. Their new guitar tech guy, Andy, kept coming out and fiddling with stuff, and then leaving, and then coming out and fiddling with more stuff. He was very assiduous and would continue to be for the rest of the week...I was pretty sick of him by Saturday. :P

What a thrill when finally the lights went down and the intro music started up, though. They came out onstage to start the wacky new Istanbul intro and all three of us immediately noticed the same thing: Danny in red pants. The next thing was that Dan was wearing sunglasses, which greatly puzzled us. He told us later that he'd had to wear them because of a bet, and that he couldn't see anything while he was wearing them, which is perhaps why he completely fumbled the keyboard intro to Alphabet of Nations. He still seemed able to play the guitar properly, though.

Anyway. I don't know about this new Istanbul intro thing (Linnell on the Kaoss pad while Flans orchestrates the rest of the group). I mean, the Future of Sound thing was okay at an instore where there was no Dan Miller on the acoustic guitar, but given the choice...we're not given the choice, though. I guess.

There's not a whole lot of banter to report; in fact, overall it wasn't a very chatty week for Them. After Doctor Worm, during which Dan had set off the confetti cannon, Flans did remark that they usually do the confetti later in the show, and then told the story which I had heard from one of the teachers at the Old Town School of Folk Music, how after one of their kids shows a couple years ago, Steve Earle came in and played the same room later that night and had the ambience of his very serious concert completely ruined by drifting confetti. Flans didn't name any names though. Then after John Lee Supertaster some guy kept screaming "Tell Andy (?) Snyder happy birthday!" (which we countered with "Happy birthday Marty!") and finally Flans yelled back in his beer voice, "I don't know what you're talking about!" And the guy yelled it again and Flans said, "I don't know Dee Snider. And I get the feeling you don't know Dee Snider either." To which Linnell added, "Hey, that is Dee Snider" and Flans dismissed the subject with, "We got an order against you coming to our shows, Dee."

The real excitement began after that, with Snail Shell. They have given it one super-funky beat and it was pretty much completely awesome, with Marty's drum solos and Dan rocking it on his golden Les Paul. But even more exciting was the Venue Songs set which followed that. "This is the part of the show we didn't rehearse," Linnell warned us; but it was a total treat. I was particularly happy that the two mysterious sounds of Anaheim were explained for me: the kazoo-like sound is just Flans using his voice, and the ukulele-like sound is Dan playing his guitar with some kind of effect on it, not an actual ukulele. (Although I think it would be kinda fun to see him playing a ukulele.) I'm with k1cup on Dallas, though; if they can't get the harmony right, perhaps they should consider removing it from the set. (And replacing it with Asheville. Or Columbia.)

There was a extra special moment during the set as well: the return of the St Louis song (Mississippi Nights). For the intro, Linnell pulled out his Sammy Davis Jr impression; and then he played a few chords to jog Flans's memory. "Does that help?" he asked. Flans considered for a moment. "No," he admitted. Linnell played a bit more and finally Flans took a deep breath and dove into the song. And he didn't do too badly either.

I loved the venue songs, but I didn't really like them stuck in the middle of the main set like that. I didn't so much mind that gave them less time to their "regular" songs, but I felt like the venue songs thing interrupted the flow of the show. Nonetheless I still would rather have had them than not.

Museum of Idiots was a new one for me, so hooray! After that they sped pretty quickly through the end of the set. I was glad to see Working Undercover for the Man back; I love that song. Also they have a new band intro song called Tendernessish in G which is...not very tender. It's funky. The most exciting part of the first encore was the crazy high note Linnell hit during Darkened Corridors—he continued to do that every night we saw them, and it cracked me up every night.

When they came back for the second encore, Dan had taken off his sunglasses. That was when he waved at me. I guess he couldn't see me before. :P Anyway, that was exciting of course, and then there was the whole Corn Mo Hocus Pocus thing and the show ended in a blaze of glory.

I'm almost done here, seriously. We endured the fight for setlists (and I was incredibly rude to some guy who tried to snatch one out of my hands, which I'm not proud of, but dude, you gotta stay out of my way when I'm at a TMBG concert) and were rewarded by the appearance of Danny and Marty. We wished Marty a happy birthday, got our stuff signed, I met woodsie22 (see you in Louisville by the way!) and then, seeing that Dan was out at the soundboard packing up his iBook as usual, I went over there to bother him. "Dan, are you busy?" I asked him as we came up; and he responded, "Never for you." Well now, that was just unnecessarily sweet. So my girls and I crowded around and chatted with him for a bit. He seemed surprised that we had come all the way from Chicago; I told him we'd be seeing them again:

me: in Indianapolis...
unsupervised: and Detroit...
hobbitgrrl: and Cleveland.
Dan: Don't you have lives?!

I also asked him about his Les Paul, which he told me is brand-spankin' new. It's beautiful. And I think that was about it. We went out and around back to the parking lot, and found Flans out by the bus surrounded by a mob, which we promptly joined. When I got up to the front of the crowd he was talking to a lady whose house had apparently burned down and all her TMBG CDs lost in the fire. He wrote something on a piece of paper and passed it over to her, telling her to contact the person he'd written down and she'd get some "consolation prizes." Holy shit, how totally fucking sweet. Flans really is the nice one. I had him sign my setlist, we exchanged a few words about the venue songs, and off we went for a few hours' rest before heading to Indianapolis which, not to spoil the story for you, was perhaps my favorite show of the trip. More on that in my next episode.

Oh, and as always, I've got photos and stuff. No mp3s though, as this show is already for sale.

* foreword
> St Louis
* Indy
* Detroit
* Cleveland – Odeon
* Cleveland – KidsFest
* Lebowski Fest