o/~ For everyone who only just arrived
A quick synopsis:
If you came late and missed the commotion
And you wonder what was all that
Here’s the recap …
(Synopsis For Latecomers, BOOK, TMBG)
They Might Be Giants’ album Flood was up for its 30th anniversary in 2020, hence a celebration tour. When dates for the first half of the year went on sale, Zeke and I pounced on a January ticket for NYC. I coaxed my cousin Mike into coming with. It was the best!! Afterward, I was all dismay that I’d gone to only one concert. What was I thinking?! So in February when TMBG announced dates for the second half of 2020, I lost all grip on sanity and restraint. Fan club presale opened right as I was meant to be starting a tutor lesson … and tickets sell out FAST … but Ann and Mark let me sit on their living room floor and buy ticket after ticket. They shook pompoms at me: “Ooh ooh did you get Seattle? What’s next? Oh you should totally go to St Louis!”
(Did I have any idea how I’d get around to all these venues without a tour bus? Not at all. Pah! details, details.)
All told, I ended up with 16 tickets: NYC again for two consecutive nights (Mike roped in again, weeee!) and a plan for a western US road trip in September / October 2020.
Huzzah!
Right??
Such a high!!!
And then the pandemic struck.
TMBG rescheduled all their concerts into spring 2021. And then rescheduled everything again for spring 2022. (Mark that—spring 2022, it comes up again later in the story.) Then the omicron variant hit and They rescheduled a third time: but now building in fire breaks by spreading out smaller clusters of concerts from June 2022 through May 2023.
In a pique of refusal to adhere to reason, I’d bought seven more tickets at the first round of rescheduling (bc inevitably there are refunds), adding in a bunch of New England dates. Now my two-part compact adventure was spread out into four clumps over 12 months.
How many times can I fly to the States in a year?! (Hold that thought.)
You might suppose that that would be the end of the catastrophes, and you would be wrong. TMBG did perform their first Flood concert on 8 June 2022, after two and a half long, ugly, and naked years, and by every account it was a hell of a show! I wish I’d been there. However, on the way home after, John Flansburgh’s car got hit by a drunk driver. The car rolled, and he broke seven ribs. 😱 Thank gods for fire breaks … They had to reschedule the rest of their June shows but by all miracles, John F recovered in time for the end of August.
💙 💙 💙 WE LOVE YOU JOHN FLANSBURGH 💙 💙 💙
Zeke and I had June tickets for Baltimore, NYC, and NYC again. We had just sat down on the bus to Heathrow on 9 June when we saw the news. No way to reschedule our plans, so we rallied in our best tribute to the band as we could manage. More details of that adventure in due course.
But 30 August … !! 30 August, They Might Be Giants played Asbury Park, New Jersey, and Zeke and I were there, and it was GLORIOUS.
We went on to Portsmouth, New Hampshire; Portland, Maine; and North Adams, Massachusetts. We’ll go back to Spokane for a week, then we’re back out to Boston; Boston again; Ithaca, New York … and I think I’ve just managed to find a ticket for Buffalo, NY. Aaaaaaaahhhhhhh!!!!!
There’s more (!!) but this gets the blog started.