“The Big Tour” 2025 version will begin when They Might Be Giants hit the stage at a sold-out Bourbon Theater Tuesday.
As was the case when TMBG played the Bourbon in 2023, the two Johns, guitarist John Flansburgh and keyboardist/accordionist John Linnell, will have a “big band,” Tuesday, an eight-piece setup that includes a three-man horn section.
And TMBG will be doing two sets Tuesday, the first a selection of fan favorites and deep cuts, the second, spotlighting one of the band’s albums.
Which one?
“We don’t know, we don’t have any master plan,” Flansburgh said in a Zoom conversation last month. “We’ve got four different albums we’re doing spotlights on ‘Mink Car,’ ‘John Henry,’ ‘Apollo 18,’ and we have done ‘Flood.’ So it could be any of those. Right now we’re actually working on getting ‘Lincoln’ together. Doing ‘Lincoln’ in Lincoln, would be very cool, but I don’t want to make any promises.”
“Lincoln,” TMBG’s 1988 second album, has nothing to do with Lincoln, Nebraska, or, beyond the shared namesake, Abraham Lincoln. It’s the name of the Boston suburb where the duo grew up.
They formed TMBG, a name taken from a 1971 movie title that was lifted from “Don Quixote” who thought the windmills he saw might be giants.
Stalwarts on the Brooklyn DIY scene, TMBG, which initially was the duo and a drum machine, created quirky rock ‘n’ roll with outré off absurd lyrics, catchy pop melodies and unusual instrumentation — accordion, anyone?
TMBG broke into the mainstream with their major label debut, 1992’s “Flood,” a platinum album that was lifted by “Birdhouse in Your Soul,” a modern rock hit and by “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” and “Particle Man” and the cartoon videos that became MTV staples and pointed the way toward the children’s music that the band added to its repertoire in the early 2000s.
The innovative band, which won Grammys for the “Malcolm in the Middle” theme song “Boos of Me,” and the 2009 children’s album “Here Come the 123s” was one of the bands to sell their music online themselves, early podcasters and, for more than 30 years, “Dial-A-Song,” where fans could call-in or, since 2015, go online to hear new or old songs, studio material, etc.
All of that, in some form, figures into TMBG’s shows, as does Flansburgh’s oft-hilarious commentary that is so funny he could have a standup career if this music thing doesn’t work out.
Listen now and subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | RSS Feed | SoundStack
“Wow,” he said. “It’s hard. It’s hard enough being in a band. I can’t imagine doing that, I have friends who do comedy writing, and that seems like the hardest.”
That off-the-cuff humor, Flansburgh said, is one of the key elements in TMBG’s acclaimed, always entertaining shows.
“What’s interesting about any kind of live performance that really kind of engages people is, to some degree, you have to grab people by the collar and drag them around to your own obsessions,” Flansbrugh said. “There’s a fair amount of fourth wall breaking in our show, and, and people love that. John Linnell said to me a long time ago ‘You know, people don’t know they want to be surprised.’ I feel like that’s really a good sort of North Star to put your show together to.”
One of Tuesday’s surprises probably won’t be a new song, even though TMBG is putting the finishing touches on their first album since 2021’s “Book.”
“We’ve been working on a record for on and off for the past couple of years,” Flansburgh said. “We made a record during COVID, and that was sort of an odyssey, because it was just so hard to get anything done. But this record has just been easier.
“We’re going back in the studio in the beginning of September to do some final songs. It’s all mostly mixed, but we’re gonna just add a couple more songs to the batch. It’ll be out, probably, at the beginning of next year.”
And 2026 will be year 44 for TMBG, making them one of the longest-running bands with all original members — it helps when there were just two.
“I don’t think when Eddie Cochran was thinking about the future of rock and roll, he thought there’ll be bands that play for 40 years,” Flansburgh said. “It’s kind of antithetical to the spirit of it, just because it was so youth-oriented. But, hey, you know it’s also been really interesting. I think the popular song is a fantastic vehicle for personal expression, and I still believe in it.”
And that distinctive, personal expression in their quirky rock ‘n’ roll and pop songs is what has allowed TMBG to outlast most of their mid-80s contemporaries, who may have flown higher three or four decades ago but are now residing in the “where are they now” file.
“Considering what a roller coaster music careers can be, we’ve had so much steady interest from our core audience,” he said. “It’s been very heartening… Maybe we rode in on the alternative music wave, but by and large we’ve sort of felt like what we were doing was pretty singular. And, I guess, the advantage of not being associated with a trend or a fad, you don’t really rise as high, but, it’s a smoother ride.”
Reach the writer at 402-473-7244 or kwolgamott@journalstar.com. On Twitter @KentWolgamott
Love
0
Funny
0
Wow
0
Sad
0
Angry
0
Stay up-to-date on what’s happening
Receive the latest in local entertainment news in your inbox weekly!
* I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy.
L. Kent Wolgamott
Entertainment reporter/columnist
Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!
Your notification has been saved.
There was a problem saving your notification.
{{description}}
Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
Followed notifications
Please log in to use this feature
Log In
Don’t have an account? Sign Up Today