Shows/2025-11-15

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24 wikians attended: Amberdew, AutisticDib, Cyrano, DemoDuckieC, Disinvited Guest, Goo ish, IMBDave, LimeLoaf, Lowqualitygravy, Mamazaf, Mrsbluebeard, Out of Xenia, Paharwell, PicklesOblongFan, RedstoneObject, ResentfulAppendage, Robot Parade, RyRy, Shes An Angel, SmogGiggling, StudioBueno, Wireless mike, Zafiredis, Zippyinthesnailshell

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Setlist:

Set 1:

Set 2:

Encore 1:

Encore 2:

They Might Be Giants
Brooklyn Bowl Nashville in Nashville, TN
November 15, 2025 at 8:00 PM


Fan Recaps and Comments:

Andrew:

A fantastic John Henry-themed show, following an equally fantastic Apollo 18 show the night before. I was at the Atlanta John Henry show a couple of weeks prior to this and of the two I think I may have enjoyed this one even more.
Random bits of the banter I recall: Flans asked Linnell if he'd done anything in the city during the day, and Linnell said he did, and he almost got lost. He explained that, when in Nashville, he'd always used the Pontiac dealership sign with a large Indian head as his landmark (I'm not a local but a quick search makes it appear to be the Beaman Motor Co. sign). Now that the sign has been removed, Linnell couldn't remember where he was in the city. Flansburgh said it would be like if the Citgo sign in (I didn't catch which city) [ed. note: Boston] was taken away. Linnell pointed out that the Citgo sign was still there, and Flans said that was his point, it would be confusing if it suddenly WASN'T there. Then they both wondered whatever became of the old Pontiac sign after it was removed.
Flansburgh said he'd been reading Yelp reviews, sometimes to help him fall asleep. He'd read a review for Riker's Island and wondered how a review for that even worked. He also chose to read a review of a specific TMBG show in which the reviewer had said "it was alright", but critiqued that the band had openly said that they didn't bother rehearsing (Flansburgh had made a joke about not rehearsing prior to this anecdote.). Flans explained they'd only admit they didn't rehearse if they were confident. If they didn't rehearse because they were lazy, then they'd never admit it!
While introducing stelluB, Flans said playing the song in reverse was like a backmasking message that allowed Satan to possess us, therefore Satan would be in all of us after they play it live (huge cheers). He said once the video version of the song played at the top of the second half, Satan would leave us....but would remain in the band (more huge cheers). The band would then jump into a cauldron at the end of the show and depart.
That's all that's coming to me off the top of my head at the moment. If anyone remembers those bits more clearly, by all means edit or add on as you please!

User:Robot Parade

The show on Saturday was absolutely rocking. Was really happy they performed John Henry. I don't have many takeaways from the concert, but me and a few other fans waited outside the venue for a while and we were able to talk with the band for a sec! I didn't say much but I did get an awkward fist bump in with Pender and asked Marty what he was eating for dinner. Also, the mayor of Nashville, Freddie O'Connell was there. He was a friend of the band's and came with a lady named Mary who TMBG knew from their days with Elektra. He hung out with the band after the show and came out of the same doors the band did with what seemed to be three security guards in tow. This was easily the best concert I've been to from TMBG, I had an absolutely wonderful time!

PicklesOblongFan:

Set One
  • As with the previous night and many nights in this lifetime, Flansburgh commented on the composition of the crowd. He remarked that the ratio of glasses to beards was decidedly in the favour of glasses. He also was surprised by the lack of hats in the audience this night. But someone next to me in the crowd was a glasses-wearing, bearded, hat-enjoyer, so that helped give a little more representation to each group.
  • An early joke in the show was Flansburgh saying that a song went pretty well considering they didn't rehearse. Then, a song or two later, he said, "Maybe we should have rehearsed that one."
  • Then he went on the diatribe about the Yelp! reviews as mentioned in Andrew's recap above. People were really feeling the jokes tonight. Some very hearty laughs, especially compared to the night before. (Instant laughs at the mention of Rikers, which was nice. That could have fallen flat if everyone in the audience was like 12 years old.) At some point, Flansburgh expressed that his ability to talk so much tonight was due to him having a cup of Coffee just before the show.
  • In the talk about Linnell wandering around and getting lost during the day (again, see Andrew's recap for more details), some people in the crowd got a little restless and were murmuring some excited gasps. You could tell they were expecting the band to segue this conversation into They Got Lost, which was never going to happen, but I appreciated their ability to have hope in what is so often a hopeless world.
  • Before Unrelated Thing, Flansburgh and Linnell talked about how people in the crowd who were fans of tempo were about to have a bad time, considering how slow the song was going to be. But Linnell said, "If you hate tempo, you're gonna love it."
  • I wasn't fully aware of the setlist of these John Henry shows, so it really caught me off-guard to immediately transition from Meet James Ensor to The Famous Polka, but it was super slick and fun. Shout-out to the two Here Comes Science John cosplayers near the front of the crowd doing a great job with their "Hey!"s.
  • If you had the displeasure of reading my recap from the previous night, you might be aware that the Flansburgh mouth camera was not working correctly during Stuff Is Way, but it worked correctly tonight. :) [Edit: As brought up by Amberdew, this was probably about stelluB having issues on the show from the 14th, but the footage did indeed seem to work during tonight's show.]
  • During Spy, Flansburgh directed the audience to enter sonic combat with the horns as he had us cheer before/after/during their blasts by tilting his arms toward them and us. I would assume this is a common bit during the song, but it was fun enough to comment on. I feel the audience held their own! At the end of the day, one can't truly compete with the horns, but I'd say it was close to a tie considering the power imbalance. The final "Spy" from Flansburgh was also really funny and short. Love that song. Incredibly fun live.
  • After Dirt Bike, Flans proclaimed that the John Henry portion of the night was complete, and the crowd had a slight reaction to this. Linnell commented on how it's hard to know what to say to something like that. He brought up the concept of "yay-boo" to describe one's feelings. Very much a "don't cry because it's over; smile because it happened" situation. (My words, not theirs. Also not even my original words, obviously. Sorry for confusing you. I will stick to the facts from here on out when using quotation marks. (I can't actually promise that, but I'll try.))
  • I try to keep my subjective thoughts for the end of these recaps, but I need to break character for a moment to say that You Probably Get That A Lot was phenomenal live. So, so fun. There were a good amount of people jumping to the segment that starts appearing at around 30 seconds in with the "You probably already know" line, but we need to bump up those numbers! If you hear the song at a future show and are capable of jumping up and down, I impel, instruct, and command that you go absolutely feral. For your old pal, PicklesOblongFan. It would mean a lot.
  • Before starting stelluB, Flans said this was "The moment I've all waited for," which if you can tell from the way I write these things, I found really funny. Then, as Andrew said, he talked about how the spirit of Satan was about to enter our bodies, an allusion to the Satanic Panic movement and more specifically backmasking (a term I was unfamiliar with before seeing it in Andrew's recap above (although I was familiar with the concept), so I have linked to its Wikipedia article for your convenience and pleasure) where songs have Satanic messages in-laid when played backwards so as to induce impressionable youth into becoming Satanists. If anyone could make this work, it probably is They Might Be Giants, but as Andrew said, hearing the song performed forwards would reverse the effect anyway. In addition to the cheers Andrew mentioned, when Flansburgh said that hearing it the right way would remove the influence of Satan from us, there were boos from the audience, which was a good bit.
  • Near the end of Miller Time, Dan dropped his guitar pick, presumably not on purpose, but he's such a professional that whilst the loop was going on he was able to turn around and pick up another one. Incredibly smooth recovery.
  • Whilst Mark was conducting the band to stop playing during Istanbul (Not Constantinople) by jumping up and down, there was a moment where the band was a few seconds off from when he finished his jump, and he held out his hands in mock disapproval.
Set Two
  • There were quite a few bits before Dead, as Flans directed the audience to turn on their phone flashlights to provide a sense of ambience for the song. (I recorded a bit of this one, so I have Too Much Information about exactly what was said and will spare very few details. Apologies for wasting your precious time, but we have to be thorough with this stuff. People are going to be reading this in 2082 and will want to know each specific dated reference that was made. So here it goes!
    • "Can we bring the lights down in General here, so that we can just bask in the glory that is Tim Apple's fortune." -Flansburgh
    • "I think there's some people holding out. I think there's some shy people and some very sexy ;) people who are not pulling out their phones. This is a special shout-out to all the shy people and all the sexy people who have not put their phone up yet. I know it's not the kind of thing you like to do, but it's the kind of thing we're gonna make you do." -Flansburgh
    • Flans derided the right side (from the stage perspective) of the audience for having less phone lights than the left side of the audience. The left side then booed the right side. (Deservedly so, I might add.)
    • One of the few moments of someone in the audience being acknowledged by the band was someone bellowing "We need more phones!" and Flansburgh repeating said sentiment (with slightly less passion). "We need more phones."
    • Linnell defended the right side, saying there might be some dead batteries, and Flans said there might be some people who turned off their phones of respect for the band and said "We appreciate that. If my wife was here, she would have made me turn off my phone."
    • Linnell then* said that the song was actually written with the express purpose of having the audience shine their phone light onto the band. 40 years ago, before they even knew what phones were, that was their intention. *This could have been before the other moments, but it doesn't really matter.
  • At some point, Flansburgh casually said to the audience, "How beautiful a world we live in because you came to this show" which was a really lovely sentiment.
  • For the signed Book giveaway, Flans said that they printed "a trillion" of these things and there were "a scant few left." [Contrast with last night where the numbers were more believable.] The Book was then given to someone in a Birthday tiara, and Flans and Linnell talked about baseball giveaways again, I guess after what happened the night before, even though there were no further exchanges. But Linnell talked about adults stealing baseballs from children and how this could become a thing during the Book giveaway. Thankfully I do not believe this was the case tonight.
  • Before Brontosaurus, Linnell was talking about something (can't remember what), but as he was just about finished with his thought, the song started. But because the song instantly begins with vocals from him, he was not prepared and the song abruptly stopped as Linnell finished his thought and joked about the rudeness of starting without him. The song would then restart without a hitch. (I was amazed how quickly the band all stopped in unison after noticing that Linnell wasn't ready. Really impressive stuff.)
  • After The Darlings Of Lumberland (probably), Flansburgh shouted out the Horns, and Linnell remarked that it was weird how only two of the Horns members' names rhymed. (Dan and Stan.) Flans suggested the Mark should change his name to Man to fit the rhyme scheme. Mark (I could keep up the bit with calling him Man for the rest of this, but for the sake of consistency, legibility, and decency, I shall abate. But just know I could have) then looked at the audience and gave a shrug not too dissimilar to that one gif of Timothée Chalamet from his Narduwar interview, as if to say, "Yeah, sure."
  • Linnell then made a joke that the Horns were actually all brothers, and he went on to say that they all wear identical clothes. Probably his funniest joke of the night.
  • On the subject of Brontosaurus, Linnell was talking about how the Horns had shortened the name to just Bronto, and they had a bizarre inflection on the final syllable. I could not possibly do it justice in writing, but imagine it was something like Brontaouoo. This probably led into the next bit.
  • One final bit of poking fun at Mark, Flansburgh was talking about New York and said that Mark was only 50% New York, with the other 50% of his core being California, but because of that, it made him 100% showbiz. Mark then did a sensual little dance, and Flans said he was glad he had turned around to see it.
  • Before Particle Man, Flansburgh shouted out Freddie O'Connell, mayor of Nashville and friend of the band, enjoying the show up in the balcony with the other 1%ers. The crowd turned around to gaze at him and cheer for his presence. Flans made a joke about Freddie having worn nice clothes to the event. I snuck a glance at Freddie during the song to see how into he was, but he was sitting down. Nothing wrong with that. Mayors need rest too.
  • Then, (I think) before Birdhouse In Your Soul, as Robot Parade mentioned, Flans shouted out Mary, who was an important character in the previous night's show from his text exchange with her. I snuck one last glance during this song, and this time, Freddie was up at the railing grooving like the rest of us. Rock on, Freddie.
Subjective Thoughts
So fun getting to hear so many songs from John Henry live. :)
I was especially happy to hear Dirt Bike. One of my favourite songs, and it was beautiful live. <3
One thing that really amazed me at both shows this weekend was how polite the audience was! Especially after COVID and through the rise of annoying people on social media, it seems like there's always people trying to heckle bands or become Main Characters, but everyone here was just having a good time. In particular, the cell phone etiquette was unmatched. My friend sent me a video from a non-TMBG concert recently, and so many people were just filming the entire thing on their phone. But that was not the case here! People filmed bits and pieces, obviously, but it wasn't like people were just there to film the concert for later. Good stuff.
I knew that Stuff Is Way had made its way to the live show experience due to its absurd and hilarious Internet popularity, but I didn't realize it had become a Every Night song. I thought maybe every other night at the most, but no. Stuff Is Way is officially on the same level as Birdhouse In Your Soul lol. Knowing that we can force the band to play songs we want by getting them popular enough online is a terrifying concept. If any magnanimous, large-scale TikTokkers are reading this and would like recommendations for what songs to boost into the cultural zeitgeist, DM me on cohost; I have some ideas.
I ended up making about $1,200 in tips from fans who appreciated my write-up from the previous night, which was less than I was hoping for, but it wasn't too bad.
Thank you for reading! I have no plans to go to any more shows any time soon, but if I find myself at one in the future, I'll be sure to do another one of these. <3

Goo:

This was my fifth TMBG show and my 19th birthday. Also, probably the best concert I've ever been to. I will never forget the moment I realized Flans was handing BOOK to ME. Flans did his regular "We'll need that back after the show" joke and I shook my head, with Linnell saying "The woman in the tiara says no". I am woman, hear me roar. Linnell also leaned down to snap a photo of me and my boyfriend with his 3D camera. I was able to ask him after the show if we'll ever see it, and he responded with "I don't know. My uber is here". My last show of 2025. I hope to catch as many more as I can before the end of time. What a way to turn 19.
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