Everything Right is Wrong Again

June 11, 2022 6:09 AM

John Flansburgh, half of the iconic duo They Might Be Giants, was seriously injured in a car crash after performing with the band at the Bowery Ballroom in Manhattan on Wednesday night.

From JF's instagram post,

"While the pain in my side has only gotten worse since, it is my heart that is really breaking over these events. The entire band and crew have been working so hard to create a new show worthy of your interest and your endurance over these miserable Covid years. Last night was such a victory, and with unplayed new songs in the works and rearrangements of older material with the horn section, it was all feeling like a new beginning. But today I am in the hospital. I would understand anyone thinking we are just a band born under a bad sign and giving up hope, but I also know someday we will rock again — and for me, that day couldn’t come soon enough."

Here's to a speedy recovery, John.

posted by MorgansAmoebas (30 comments total)

Archive.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:14 AM on June 11, 2022

Just reading the name at the beginning of the sentence almost gave me a heart attack since I know how posts that start with names often go on the blue. I was not ready to post a dot for one of the Johns yet. Also wishing for a speedy recovery.
posted by snwod at 6:28 AM on June 11, 2022 [23 favorites]

Here's the setlist from Wednesday's show. Impressive!
posted by Ike_Arumba at 6:40 AM on June 11, 2022 [1 favorite]

All of the dicks in this dick town can't keep Johnny down.
posted by Faint of Butt at 7:08 AM on June 11, 2022 [19 favorites]

Oh no! I went to see them when they played Gen Con some years back and it was the culmination of decades' worth of quiet but steady fandom. Best wishes for a complete recovery.
posted by Halloween Jack at 7:19 AM on June 11, 2022 [1 favorite]

Over the past few years, TMBG have been doing their own sort of Patreon-like model where people can pay a lump sum for the year that gets you a couple of album's worth of music, usually a new album and either an album of rarities or a live recording, and tickets to whatever show on their tour you can make it to, and other miscellaneous merch. It's nice...it feels like it deepens the connection between the band and their fan base. This is terribly sad, even though (thank heavens) it sounds like John can look forward to a full recovery. I know They must be feeling awful having to cancel the tour.
posted by Ipsifendus at 7:38 AM on June 11, 2022 [7 favorites]

Oh no
posted by interogative mood at 7:57 AM on June 11, 2022

Which describes how you're feeling all the time.
posted by tommasz at 8:15 AM on June 11, 2022 [13 favorites]

Can we get the number for Dial-A-Healing?
posted by hippybear at 8:31 AM on June 11, 2022 [8 favorites]

I was planning to see them tomorrow night. Poor John! Hope he gets well soon.
posted by cheapskatebay at 9:22 AM on June 11, 2022 [2 favorites]

Hoping for a speedy recovery followed by a thirty-second long song titled "Airbag!"
posted by phooky at 9:43 AM on June 11, 2022 [8 favorites]

If it wasn't for that tick car, we would not be in this predicament. Not be in this predicament that we're in!
posted by JHarris at 9:55 AM on June 11, 2022

Never to part since the day we met
Out on Interstate 91
I was bent metal you were a flaming wreck
When we kissed at the overpass
I was sailing along with the people
Driving themselves to distraction inside me
Then came a knock on the door which was odd
And the picture abruptly changed

At the end of the tour
When the road disappears
If there's any more people around
When the tour runs aground
And if you're still around
Then we'll meet at the end of the tour
posted by ejs at 9:56 AM on June 11, 2022 [13 favorites]

I've seen TMBG perform twice. The first time, I was very surprised (pleasantly) that they did Fingertips live.

The second time was in a very small venue about 4-5 years ago. I was in the second row of those standing at the stage with a much shorter young woman in front of me. When the band came out of stage, Flansburgh came right up to me and gave me a high five. He gave me another one in the middle of the show.

So, I have touched Flansburgh and you have not.

Godspeed, John.
posted by neuron at 10:25 AM on June 11, 2022 [14 favorites]

They are so great. First time I saw them was back on the Flood tour, when it was just the two of them with backing tracks. Boy, did they put on a show, though! Glockenshpiel and double-saxaphones and all kinds of madness. I'm sure they prefer playing with a live band, and that's a great show too, but it doesn't quite capture the weirdness and intimacy of just the Johns. Get well soon!
posted by rikschell at 10:32 AM on June 11, 2022 [5 favorites]

The particularly heartbreaking thing is that this was finally the continuation of the pandemic postponed tour - a lot of those shows had been rescheduled once or twice before, and now this.

Oof.
posted by Kyol at 10:35 AM on June 11, 2022 [10 favorites]

Goddamn drunk drivers.
posted by The corpse in the library at 11:01 AM on June 11, 2022 [4 favorites]

We had tickets for the long-delayed Philadelphia show, which would have been our kid's first TMBG show. Fitting, since they're playing all of Flood, and that's his favorite TMBG album. Now he probably won't be able to go to the rescheduled show because he'll likely be away at college when it happens. He was fifteen when we first bought tickets for the show.
posted by mollweide at 11:04 AM on June 11, 2022 [8 favorites]

If the attending physician was a fan, I’d hope they’d introduce themselves as Dr Worm.
posted by dr_dank at 11:48 AM on June 11, 2022 [6 favorites]

But only if he is an actual worm.
posted by underthehat at 12:12 PM on June 11, 2022 [8 favorites]

I used to be a TMBG super-fan growing up. Constantly listened to all their albums, had every second memorized, regularly called Dial-A-Song, was one of the first members of their now-defunct Hello! Recording Club, my first real "rock concert" was seeing them in 1990 or so, in Houston, freshman year of high school, saw them several times over the next 10 years or so. In the intervening years, as my tastes have changed, I've gotten to the point where I find them actually pretty grating -- don't know what it is, maybe I just reached my mileage limit on their music. That said, they always struck me as genuinely awesome, funny, creative, and good people, so this is a real bummer, and I hope he recovers soon. Best wishes, J.F.!
posted by Saxon Kane at 12:44 PM on June 11, 2022 [1 favorite]

If the attending physician was a fan, I’d hope they’d introduce themselves as Dr Worm.

But only if he is an actual worm.

But for Flansy's sake, I hope they're a real doctor.
posted by Strange Interlude at 1:13 PM on June 11, 2022 [11 favorites]

I was just thinking about thinking about these guys and added them to my list of Bands From My Youth That I Should See Live, But Still Haven't.

Here's my selflessly narcissistic hope that I still do being out out into the universe.
posted by 517 at 2:09 PM on June 11, 2022 [1 favorite]

Thank you for the card
With the cartoon nurse
But you see there's nothing wrong with me

You think
That's what you think
That's what you all say
Until I blow you away
posted by BrashTech at 2:38 PM on June 11, 2022 [5 favorites]

A bit more context: This was the first show of an enormous U.S. tour that was delayed and delayed and delayed again by every successive wave of COVID. Anyone who's been to a TMBG show knows how much fun they have on stage (even when a random audience member freaks Flansy out by enthusiastically waving, for example, a giant foam sword, which happens more often than you'd think) and how integral their live experience is in regards to working out new material. Not only that, but TMBG makes bank from their tours. Last I knew in the early 2000s they were pulling 25K per show and I assume that has only gone up. So this very first show was a return to their normal timeline in almost every way.

And then. This fucking tangent.

I'm glad, at least, that Flans survived and sustained an injury that he can almost-fully restore from. That's a damned lucky miss. Especially through near-40 years of touring. But in the larger scheme of things this feels like yet another daily reminder that we shouldn't get too comfortable, haha! Hahaaaaaaaaaaaaaauuuuuuggggghhhhhhh!!!!
posted by greenland at 3:46 PM on June 11, 2022 [12 favorites]

Oh my heart breaks.
posted by garbhoch at 4:08 PM on June 11, 2022

Can we get the number for Dial-A-Healing?

Forgive me for I have sinned. I was going to drop the international Rick Roll phone number in there but it seems to be just a busy signal now, probably somebody got tired of taking care of the lol's.

I will instead raise my hands for a remote healing. Blessed are the TMBG, grant speedy recovery.
posted by zengargoyle at 1:13 AM on June 12, 2022

I was at the Wednesday night show and woke up Thursday morning to my friend's text about John D's accident. I'm glad to hear that he's OK but, damn, there is a power in this world that does not want this Flood Anniversary Tour to happen. Maybe after Flans is all healed up they just do a Lincoln Anniversary Tour instead.

*the show was great; they still put on one of the funniest live shows ever.
posted by KingEdRa at 7:16 AM on June 12, 2022

I had tickets for the one of the first shows of this tour originally scheduled for April 2020. That was delayed to Winter 2021, which was then subsequently delayed again until (what was supposed to be) today. Still, the important part is Flans is safe and on the mend, and I will happily pen this down into my 2023 calendar in advance.
posted by Zargon X at 8:00 AM on June 12, 2022 [1 favorite]

(There was a period where TMBG would start a show with a random jam interspersed with Flansburgh yelling SORRY I FUCKED UP THE SHOW and I sure hope that comes back.)
posted by greenland at 3:56 PM on June 12, 2022 [1 favorite]