They Might Be Giants - Music Hall of Williamsburg

It was a blur. The final three nights of They Might Be Giants' year-long, 13-show Brooklyn stand; a New Year's show on the 31st, a Flood show on the 1st, and a 'Horn Spectacular' on the 2nd.
And I was there for them all.

New Year's Eve

Bottom line: I understand that the only way to comprehend that one year is ending and another is beginning is to be completely off your face, but, handle your shit and stop fucking things up for everyone there who can remember where 'there' is. You shits.

Or, to be more polite: the vibe of the crowd distracted some from the performance...
The band was joined by their traveling horn trio and the whole thing, which represented almost every release from the band's thirty four year career, was tight as hell. Highlights included "No One Knows My Plan", which was proceeded by Flansburgh bullying a few dozens hipster scumbags into forming a conga line despite themselves, "Why Does The Sun Shine (The Sun Is A Mass Of Incandescent Gas)?", the punk version of "Black Ops", "Number Three" (with the horns performing the horn sample...a dream come true...), "Trouble Awful Devil Evil" (featured on their upcoming album, Phone Power, coming in March), and "The Statue Got Me High".
This show also introduced the New Year's Baby, a special nightmare that would haunt the audience for all three performances.

Flood
What can you say? It's one of their best albums and they did the whole thing, almost perfectly this time. The Johns joked that they've had 26 years to get it right and that, next time around, they will.
Highlights included "Twisting", "Dead", "Your Racist Friend", "Hot Cha", "Fingertips", "Cyclops Rock" and Flans, as the New Year's Baby, singing an improvised ditty entitled "Giant Baby Eyes" which centered on how huge the New Year's Baby's eyes were. It was...spooky.

Horn Spectacular
What's better than <insert the best thing you can think of>? Getting to do it twice. October's "Horntoberfest" performance still rates as my favorite from the year and, apparently, TMBG felt that as well, because they did the whole thing over again, with a few twists. Twenty nine songs performed, only two without horns, including the live debut of "I Love You For Psychological Reasons", to which Linnell knew all the lyrics and anyone that says otherwise is not a good sport. Other highlights included "Purple Toupee", "Spy", "Working Undercover For The Man", a much tighter version of "The Darlings of Lumberland" (which might need a few more horns to fully recapture the album version's depth and glory), and the fate of the New Year's Baby, who called the band from Rikers Island penitentiary, whispering, "help me" before getting cut off. A tragic end to a tragic character.

Between these thirteen shows and the band's Dial-A-Song project, 2015 will go down as a red letter year for fans of They Might Be Giants. As far as I'm concerned, they never need to put out another song or go on tour ever again as they've done so much. But, the fact that they have a UK tour planned for the end of January and then a quick jaunt around the U.S. for the spring, plus the release of their 19th studio album as well, it's clear they hold my opinions in very low regard.
Fine. Whatever, John and John, keep making music and playing shows, see if I care...

Find details and tickets for They Might Be Giants' upcoming UK tour here.