Shows/2025-05-16

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• Setlist

Setlist:

Set 1:

Set 2:

Encore 1:

Encore 2:

They Might Be Giants
The Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles, CA
May 16, 2025 at 8:00 PM


Fan Recaps and Comments:

Brontosaurus:

This was actually my first time at ANY concert whatsoever, and suffice it to say, I'm Impressed. I went with my father, who enjoyed Flood but hadn't kept up with their discography as much outside Doctor Worm and Factory Showroom and also had never been to a TMBG show (but had seen other bands' concerts before) - he and my mother had known I was a huge fan and had covertly gotten the date my college semester ended in order to gift me the . To keep him up to speed, I had created a playlist with songs likely to appear on this tour and played it on the drive to LA, which really helped him enjoy the show.
As for the show itself, Mary Poppins would have reminded me I wasn't a codfish - I was in such awe and glee that I couldn't close my mouth until The Darlings Of Lumberland - I had to give up on typing the setlist in a word processor document early on, as I just had to take it all in as I happily stimmed the whole time. After going straight from Stompy Intro to Older, Flans began the banter by commenting on how we had a lower beards-to-no-beards ratio than the San Fran audience (though I had a guy with a beard next to me) - my dad noted something similar before the show in the age range of the show varying from senior citizens to teens and 12 year-olds. He also talked about how it was their first time in the venue - he found it a little fancier than they're used to (the place is absolutely gorgeous), but said ultimately, it was "51% a rock venue", which was enough for them. Afterward, there were a few verses swapped in Bangs (which Flans brought up), but it really didn't matter to my brain nearly about to burst with dopamine and seratonin.
My head nearly burst with unabated enthusiasm as Linnell went to pick up the accordion for the first time in the show (and every subsequent time); Flans then scolded the audience a bit on our noise levels when getting us ready for Drink! and threatened to start naming other venues; our fear caused most of us to fall inline - I struggled to get the rhythm quite right until about a quarter into the song, but was soon belting "Drink, drink!" with the rest of the audience. It was nice to see my dad enjoy Wicked Little Critta, which he'd only first heard that morning - he said he liked it better than the album version. I chuckled a little when I saw the Join Us monster hearse driving around on the screen while they played Mink Car. The rest of the performances were also great (I got a lot of laughs out of the banter with Brontosaurus and other song from their "Grammy-losing album BOOK"), but even knowing how Istanbul is typically played in these shows, seeing it there in person was on another level, just feeling it on my body. It was also really funny because my dad, knowing the song but not knowing the live performance conventions, was really confused about when the song started and stopped.
Then we hit the intermission. It was really fun to observe people - I saw someone cosplaying as the A18 squid, and wondered if there was a whale with them somewhat. In the rather long line for the bathroom, I chuckled a little bit as I told an older guy bewildered by the line that "It's like a whirlpool and it never ends" (which was especially funny considering the song got played next set, which was hardly impossible but far from a given on this tour).
During set 2, I was pleased by Marty Beller's bell performance on a stellar performance of Shoehorn With Teeth. I got quite excited when they played Turn Around despite it not being an Apollo 18 show, continued to do so for Ana Ng, then completely lost my mind hearing Fingertips. I actually had forgotten to add the latter to my playlist, so my dad wasn't prepared, but that actually enhanced the experience for him due to the amped up "what the heck" factor and him watching me recognize the song, which I had forgotten to expect. Both me and my dad were surprised by how they did Twisting - it's a song I had never seen a live recording of, so I didn't expect all that riffing. I mean, it makes sense - they had to find some way to spice it up for the Flood shows. I was excited to have You Probably Get That A Lot as our main Join Us song that night. As I'm sure is usually, Doctor Worm was fantastic - it's crazy to hear it live, as it sounds more like the studio version, which makes sense considering its history, but is still mesmerizing.
While I had known about encores from my setlist monitoring, having never been to a concert before, I didn't know how they worked - my dad had to help me on that front. My dad was just as pleasantly confused about the Rocket Number Nine Take Off For The Planet Venus interlude in Particle Man as he'd been with Istanbul. Synopsis For Latecomers was really fun because you could see a group of girls (I'd presume, but I didn't get the opportunity to ask - could have been a non-binary person among them) in one of the boxes dancing along to it. Then Birdhouse In Your Soul was great as I'm sure it always is - similar to other live performances I'd listened to before, but with the immense magic of hearing it in person. After the show, I picked up a tour poster, and my dad gifted me a Beast of Horns vinyl - I had been planning to pass on it, but I'd recently heard that version of Hey, Mr. DJ, I Thought You Said We Had A Deal through the TMBG app and could no longer resist. I don't even have a vinyl player - I'm probably going to have to get one; I'm just going to say it was back-masking and leave it at that.
Overall, I had a wonderful time, and so did my father. While most parts of the setlist seemed typical from months of looking at them in preparation for the show (and sometimes creating their wiki page), no setlist can describe the joy of me experience. It made me even more glad to be a TMBG fan after roughly three years of being obsessed and almost my entire life of listening to what my dad liked, and I really hope to see them again - unfortunately, even through May 17th wasn't sold out, me and my dad had to head back home; we were staying with a childhood friend of his, and while I'm sure that friend wouldn't have been mad, he had been really nice that whole stay and we didn't want to burden him further. Also, it's a five hour drive to LA from where we live, and we had something important Monday morning, making a drive home a questionable idea at best.
P.S. Way back in the first set (I forget which song) Flans said inure, and talked about how the bloggers at the show were say "Flans said inure", so here it is, I guess.
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