THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS
Pleasantville Music Festival
Pleasantville, NY
July 8, 2023

Audio Technica U853 cardioid mics (4.7k mod) > Church Audio ugly battery box > Sony PCM-A10 > WAV (24/48) > iZotope RX 9 (split stems) > Audacity (reduce bass guitar by -14 dB and lower kick drum -3 dB) > Sound Studio (boost treble) > iZotope RX 9 (de-click to reduce close clapping) > Sound Studio (very light dynamic compression for stray transients) > WAV (16/44.1)

Recorded and mastered by neil d

08 Number Three
01 intro
02 Damn Good Times
03 Synopsis for Latecomers
04 Birdhouse in Your Soul
05 Spy
06 Particle Man
07 Doctor Worm
09 Moonbeam Rays
10 Stellub
11 Cloisonne
12 New York City
13 Brontosaurus
14 When Will You Die
15 Istanbul (Not Constantinople)

John Flansburgh: vocals, guitar
John Linnell: vocals, keyboards, accordion
Dan Miller: guitar, keyboards, backing vocals
Danny Weinkauf: bass, backing vocals
Marty Beller: drums
Stan Harrison: saxophone
Dan Levine: trumpet, euphonium
Mark Pender: trombone

This was a weird 'un: First that TMBG was headlining this festival (immediately following the Allman Betts Band, of all people), then that the entire festival had to be cleared out earlier in the day because of thunderstorms in the area, leading everything to be delayed enough that TMBG had to do without an encore because they were past curfew. And while the sound was great, the bass for TMBG's set was unacccountably cranked up way past 11, requiring the sonic surgery you can see in the post-processing notes.

For our waiting, we got a set heavy on the "hits," along with three songs from TMBG's new album Book (which is also a book) plus their live backwards rendition of the Flood track "Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love," which you'll have to play backwards yourself to see how they did. Also parts of songs by the Eagles and Sun Ra, plus super-extended versions of "Spy" and "Istanbul." It was all pretty great, and I got to discover a couple of excellent earlier bands for the first time (Blac Rabbit and Strange Neighbors), and there was lots of pleasant lawn space and parking and traffic weren't too bad, and I will totally go back again if anyone halfway interesting is playing next year.

I'm sure if you're reading this I don't have to tell you to buy TMBG stuff or where to buy it, but they have a Bandcamp store (https://tmbg.bandcamp.com/) plus their own online shop (https://tmbgshop.com/), which has the amazing 2060 Comeback Tour shirts, among other things.