Pop Break Live: They Might Be Giants ‘Flood 30th Anniversary Tour’ at The Wiltern in Los Angeles, California
As we all know, February 2020 was a very different time. Back then, indie legends and all-around Good Guys in music They Might Be Giants announced a special treat for their adoring fans: a tour celebrating the 30th anniversary of their hit record, Flood, which would be played in full across two distinct live sets. Well, after a global pandemic and a scary car accident, John Flansburgh and John Linnell finally followed up on their promise and made it to the Wiltern in Los Angeles. Luckily for everyone in attendance, the wait was certainly worth it.
For fans of They Might Be Giants – and fans of anyone who frequently partakes in live music – this performance was a great example of what all live shows can and perhaps should be in 2023. In a move that felt like the band put the audience first, TMBG promptly took the stage at 8pm, bypassed having an opening act, and lived up to the promise of playing two full sets spanning two and a half hours. In between sets, the audience was encouraged to grab libations and chill out for a nice 20-minute intermission, and anyone who made a purchase at the merch table was given a free paper crown with the band logo on it. Throughout the night, you could see the silly silhouette of each crown bobbing around in the audience; it felt like a personal touch that perfectly encapsulated the DIY ethos of the band and made them look like the most considerate rock ‘n’ rollers of the 21st century.
The structure of the night, of course, was not the highlight – but the music itself and banter from Flansburgh and Linnell. Opening the night with a set of memorable tracks that spanned throwback records like Spine, Join Us, and of course Flood, including “Damn Good Times,” “We Want a Rock,” and “When Will You Die,” the band also treated the crowd with songs from their newest record, BOOK. The album, whose unique packaging was nominated for a Grammy, was actually sold in the form of a 144-page red, cloth-bound book, which made an appearance at the show when Flansburgh pulled one out and handed it to an excited audience member in the front row.
After playing “Brontosaurus” – a track from BOOK that went over so well with the crowd that the band commented on it – Flansburgh brought his usual levity and comedic timing to the show. He explained how, earlier in the day, he got his haircut on Melrose and had to Google images of himself to find a cut he liked, only to realize how often he accidentally flips off the camera. The whole set remained quirky and tongue-in-cheek in an earnest way that can only be understood by a TMBG fan or someone who lived through the indie music scene in 2022.
The peak of the night’s quirkiness had to be when the band played a track called “Stellub” or “bullets” backwards, which involved Flansburgh, Linnell, and their backing band of drums, guitars, and a horn section literally play the song “Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love” sonically backwards. Flansburgh explained that the performance would be recorded while he and Linnell sang lyrics backwards and also walked backwards onstage; the experience was a bit confusing at first but immensely entertaining. The second set opened with a video of that performance now played forward, looking and sounding correct. Definitely a trippy event that could only happen at a They Might Be Giants show.
Other highlights of the night include the crowd going wild with the opening notes of “Particle Man,” which caused such a stir that the upper balcony in the theatre was definitely shaking from all the excitement. Flansburgh joked about Ticketmaster being a “cultural pinata” for many decades, and mentioned having memories of people complaining about them in a record store way back in the 70s. The band’s two covers of the night “Why Does The Sun Shine? (The Sun Is a Mass of Incandescent Gas)” and “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” brought down the house in a way that only a nerdy audience could. And the band closed out the evening with two encores featuring “Don’t Let’s Start” and the classic “Doctor Worm.”
With a band like They Might Be Giants at the helm, and an audience of Gen Xers who bought tickets for the show over three years earlier, it was impossible to ignore the complete elation and joy baked into the evening. The experience of celebrating a seminal album like Flood paired with a double-set show that really kept the audience in mind made the night unforgettable. No one is cool like They Might Be Giants are cool, and their sold-out show at the Wiltern definitely proves that.
