they might be giants

it's funny, the bigness of business, its multinationalness and such, means that a labor movement has to be comically cosmopolitan. the people in society least likely to know exactly where foreign countries are have the greatest need to be politically correct, to understand the concerns of people on the other side of the world. what a ridiculous challenge a global labor movement is, and yet that's exactly what has to happen if big business, big, nationless business is to treat their workers better.

i went to a they might be giants concert at the williamsburg waterfront today, and that was a really pleasant thing. i sort of stumbled into it, i was reasonably sure they were the "istanbul not constantinople" band but i wasn't sure. anyway, the opening acts were comedians who led us through 3 hours of anticipation, a full hour of which was a total, bucket-over-the-head downpour. they were hilarious. the last guy before they might be giants played guitar and sang funny things and that's when i realized what they might be giants is, and what sort of crowd it was. as the highlight, he sang a song about a coworker turned zombie, and suddenly all these staring heads were singing along too, really crooning along with him, truly loving this shit. and that's when i realized how dorky it was. in retrospect, even the comedy intros are dorky because laughing unrestrainedly isn't cool. but when the singing comedian guy came on stage the dorkiness really bloomed. i don't think it was acoustics as much as the sing-a-long aspect that made that happen all of a sudden, that guy was, in a word, really there with the audience and they with him, he was there for them and they loved him, held his lyrics and his voice in a way that'd be uncomfortably, almost humiliatingly intimate for some kind of cool, artiste type. coolness is a kind of misanthropy, really.

and so with this crowd, willing to belt out "all we wanna do is eat your brains" with minimal provocation was so, so close to him.
the crowd, i came to realize, was also super dorky in how NICE they were. hardly anyone smoked cigarettes and those that did were so considerate that they'd always blow the smoke up rather than on their fellow attendees. when they might be giants came on, this instant camaraderie, this instant readiness to BE A PART OF THE BAND washed over everyone, and 5000 people were ready to clap at the slightest indication that clapping was what tmbg wanted, what would help them and make them one with them. and it made me realize that it must be fucking awesome to be the sort of band that plays for a crowd like this, this is the perma-best crowd ever, this is the crowd that loves with abandon, without any of that distant head bobbing shit that reigns with cooler shit. they made fun of fran leibowitz and "unhappy people" -- "i'm glad they aren't here." they did a fucking sock puppet show for god's sake.

and they were entertainers in the truest sense, in the complete sense that they were really there because the audience was there, that that was the whole reason. at some points this was almost embarrassingly explicit, they said things like "look at all those happy customers"

there's more to say about this, like how i now realize that no crowd but a tmbg crowd wouldve endured all that rain, it's own sign of dorkiness, their loyalty branded on their soaking shirts, but i am so tired from standing in the rain like a bona fide diehappy fan