Ever wonder if your doctor is really a worm or if a blue canary is living in your soul? Just ask They Might Be Giants (TMBG). On June 19, American alternative rock band TMBG performed their second sold-out night at the Vic Theater in Chicago as part of their Big Tour of the Midwest. Long-time duo John Flansburgh and John Linnell were backed by Marty Beller on drums, Dan Miller on the guitar, and Danny Weinkauf on bass. Joining them were Curt Ramm, Dan Levine, Stan Harrison and Mark Pender on brass.
From modern rock to children’s songs, the 40-year-old band from Brooklyn is famed for their unconventional style and witty lyricism. Their music has been featured as the theme song for Malcolm and the Middle as well as in SpongeBob SquarePants: The Broadway Musical. At the Vic Theater, it was clear that their wide-ranging music has amassed a loyal following from dads to teens.
The atmosphere at the venue was indubitably intimate. There was no photo pit, so the crowd lined right up at the edge of the stage. As “They Might Be Giants” flashed on-screen in flickering fonts, the audience began a synchronized clap: a harbinger of the band’s arrival. Soon enough, under flashing white lasers, Linnell and Flansburg graced the stage with an accordion and a guitar as the rest of the band took their places.
“Man, that dressing room was comfortable,” Flansburgh joked as he greeted the audience. “I’m going to let you in on a little secret—I’m not even sure what day it is,” he said before announcing that the first set will spotlight the 1994 album John Henry.
Starting with “Subliminal”, TMBG invited the audience to “stare into the subliminal / for as long as you can.” The band followed up with tracks such as “Snail Shell”, in which the narrator thanks “Sir Hand” for putting him back into his shell, and “Unrelated Thing”, which features a conversation between a man and woman over her funny expression at seemingly nothing. Our personal favorite, however, was “James Ensor.” The song imagined a crowd “pressed against the window/ so they could be the first” to meet the Belgian surrealist painter. In John Henry, TMBG’s classic experimental lyrics accompanied by traditional acoustic instrumentation made for a pleasurable listen.
Linnell traded his accordion for some keys as TMBG made a brief departure from John Henry to launch into the fan favorite “Doctor Worm.” Backed by triumphant trumpets, Doctor Worm’s proclamation of “I’m not a real doctor, but I am a real worm” was met by cheers from the crowd, who sang along to the tune.
Returning to John Henry, Flansburg and Linell joked about the album’s original reception. “Critics didn’t like it… mostly in the UK, where you know, people just turn on you,” Linnell quipped. The band played a couple of other tracks such as “Dirt Bike” and “No One Knows My Plan” before ending their first set “sonically in reverse.” Performing “Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love” backwards, TMBG dubbed their creation “Stellub” (aka “Bullets” backwards).
After a twenty-minute intermission, a second set featured some of TMBG’s most celebrated hits as the night climbed in energy. “The Mesopotamians” imagined “Sargon, Hammurabi, Ashurbanipal, and Gilgamesh” as players in an eponymous rock band. Curious graphics accompanied “Ana Ng,” showing two people with rose bouquets for heads sitting at the root of an apple tree before being drowned in apples. In “James K. Polk,” the stage was bathed in red, white, and blue lights as TMBG celebrated the underrated president who “made the tariffs fell / and made the English sell / the whole of the Oregon territory” all without seeking a second term. At one point, Flansburgh briefly reached behind the curtains for a large wooden stick. As he tapped the stick to the rhythm of “Lie Still, Little Bottle”, the spotlight fixed on him as the crowd chanted “stick” in unison.
At the end of “Can’t Keep Johnny Down,” amidst repeated chants for an encore, the audience seemed unwilling to believe that the night was at its end. Thankfully, it wasn’t. TMBG returned to the stage with the jolly ol’ tune of “Drink!”, which declared that “it’s never too late to drink.” “Thank you so much, you’ve been a fantastic audience!” Flansburgh said before launching into the band’s biggest hit “Birdhouse in Your Soul.”
Before the concert, we had the opportunity to chat with some fans about their history with the band. John and Molly, father and daughter duo from Austin, Texas, listed Flood and Apollo 18 as their favorite albums. “The lyrics are smart and not pretentious,” John said, “they’re just fun.” “There are lots of earworms,” Molly added before talking about Doctor Worm, one of her favorites. As a Columbia College alumnus, John shared that he used to use TMBG’s sound bites for film projects all the time. John and Molly had come up to Chicago just to see the band.
Ethan from River Forest and Damian from Miami Beach, both Creighton University students, shared their thoughts. Ethan’s dad introduced him to TMBG’s music. “The music is goofy,” he said, noting his favorite song as “No. 3,” though “Birdhouse in Your Soul is the one everyone knows.” Damian had a different introduction to the band. “I grew up on Malcolm in the Middle and they did the theme song for that,” he said.
Griffin Bonnin Jones, Class of ‘26, described the evergreen band as eccentric. “Four decades and they’ve got life to them… you don’t see that a lot,” he said. If there’s anything you should know about They Might Be Giants, it is that they are certainly well-loved. Just like the blue canary in “Birdhouse in Your Soul,” TMBG’s story might just be infinite.
