God's in his heaven, all's right with the world

Last night I saw They Might Be Giants at the Bluebird. The opening act was a band called Oppenheimer, who were actually quite good - I have seen many bands open for They Might Be Giants in my day, and I would say these guys were not quite up to the level of Ok Go, but certainly better than, oh, Corn Mo. (Click the link if you dare!) Oppenheimer is two guys from Belfast, one on drums and one on guitar, and they did a good, electronic power-pop-y set. They were super loud - my clothes were vibrating, my heart was beating in time. In certain moods, at certain times, I sure do love loud rock 'n' roll.

TMBG opened with a classic - "Hey Mr DJ, I Thought You Said We Had A Deal" - and afterwards, John Flansburgh remarked, "It may be a little early in the show to say this, but I think this may well be our BEST SHOW EVER." And it was pretty fantastic.

I have rarely seen John Linnell as animated or in such high spirits as last night. It was wonderful - he smiled the whole time, he told little anecdotes, he actually got out from behind the keyboard to move around on stage and DO THE ROBOT, he blew us a kiss at the end of the second encore. He did the robot, people. The man is like unto a god.

Linnell told a story of the first time they'd played in Bloomington, back in the 80's, when their manager's father attended the show and afterwards remarked, "That's how Hitler got started." This story seemed to really ring his bell.

John Flansburgh was also looking well, and I dig their current drummer - he's very animated. They played a good mix of old and new - a lot of stuff from The Else, as expected, but also classics like "I Palindrome I" and "Ana Ng." No real surprises, but no matter what, the opening bars of "New York City" will always be one of the most sublime moments life has to offer.