"I thought those were weird songs you made up to sing to the cat! Who writes a song called Dr Worm?"
I can't imagine how surreal it must be to see a band play your spouse's silly cat songs in front of hundreds of cheering fans.
They have a very large band including a lot of wind instruments, and they really have fun with it. (Spoiler alert) they've taken to playing Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love in reverse, filming it live, then playing that recording in reverse for the audience (post-intermission).
I also enjoyed that they introduced Birdhouse with "Please rise for the They Might Be Giants national anthem."
Isn't that, like, everything? The first time I saw them it was because they were here, it was affordable, and I dug that Malcom in the Middle song, so why not? The second time was just because they're fun. There will be a next time and it will again be just because they're fun.
And I'm still not sure I could name another of their songs.
No band, just the two of them. Plus the metronome, and some prerecorded backup here and there.
My best friend and I saw them when we were 13. I don't know what TMBG concerts are like in the last 15-20 years, but there were maybe 100 people there. Great concert, my first, had a lot of fun.
The two of us both stayed around to meet the Johns. Waited 30 or 45 minutes in the newly brightened room as the place cleared out and all the roadies packed up. Finally they emerged, with the two of us the only ones left. We asked for their autographs and they said "sorry, kids, if we gave you autographs we'd have to give everyone an autograph" and laughed out the door.
We kind of instinctively looked around the room to indicate we _were_ everyone, but maybe that was the joke. To a 13 year old it didn't sour anything, but can't deny we weren't disappointed.
Like that, but bigger, and eventually with more people on stage.
And every so often, giant puppet heads.
They call me Doctor Worm
Good morning, how are you? I'm Doctor Worm
I'm interested in things
I'm not a real doctor
But I am a real worm, I am an actual worm
I live like a worm
[Verse 2]
I like to play the drums
I think I'm getting good
But I can handle criticism
I'll show you what I know
And you can tell me if you think I'm getting better on the drums
I'll leave the front unlocked 'cause I can't hear the doorbell
This song, and this particular line, are a part of my religion.
And the melody is a variation of the traditional song "The Girl I Left Behind" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl_I_Left_Behind), which dates at least to the 17th century.
I made a similar comment to my parents, about how music in the 60s and 70s was all so good, not like the crap today. They responded by telling me: "We were there, it was mostly crap".
I've paid attention since that conversation, and come to the conclusion that: most music for most time periods is crap. Some of it is good enough to be remembered. Some of it is nostoligic to a time/place/scene and will be remembered. But most of it, is just crap clones of crap songs.
The best music seems to come from relatively obscure/underground scenes and then grows outward from there. Sometimes the awareness cone may miss your own light cone for a while and you only learn about a song years later. That's ok, it happens to everyone. Sometimes you don't realize how good a song was because you didn't have some of the life experience or knowledge or perspective to see how great it was - that's ok too. Often you'll revist a song that just hit right for the moment and it turns out that you were wrong about it's greatness... it was awful after all (but you have a bit of guilty nostalgia about it anyway)... thats OK too.
Point being there's always good music being made, and if you want to catch it fresh you gotta expand your exposure to more music from different genres/scenes/etc. I'm 100% certain that there is incredible new music being made somewhere, right now, as you read this.
Similarly if you ever get a chance you should read the Dave Barry book "Book of Bad Songs" where he relates singing "MacArthur Park" to his increasingly incredulous son.