From: shirley@gothamcity.jsc.nasa.gov (Bill Shirley [CSC])
Newsgroups: houston.music
Subject: They Might Be Giants show halted at the Vatican
Keywords: Fascism in Houston
Date: 24 Jul 92 18:31:14 GMT
Organization: Software Technology Lab - NASA/Johnson Space Center


Thursday, July 23, 1992
Houston, TX
-----------------------
Un-F-ing-believable!

I'm glad I saw TMBG in Austin on wednesday, because they only played ~1/3
of the show in Houston on Thursday.  In Austin, they seemed to not be in
the cheeriest of moods after the crowding/crushing problem, which caused
them to take a 15 min, break after the second song.  The Houston show was
starting out much better.  The sound was better, the band seemed in a 
better mood, (and it was even hotter than in Austin - no open walls at 
the Vatican).

During the first song, a couple of "dudes were passed", and after the first
song Guitar John said, "Thanks for comming [blah, blah, blah] First we're
going to lay the ground rules.  No Stage Diving.  No Slam Dancing. None of
this modern dancing stuff.  Square dancing, or any other traditional form
is prefered."  This was met by much cheering from everyone NOT within 50
feet of the stage.

About 7 songs into it people started percolating backwards through the crowd
looking like they'de been thrown in pools.  They were passing out cups of 
ice water at the stage (as in Austin) and it seemed (in both places) that
they would get passed around and drunk until only ice was left, then they'de
just throw the ice back into the crowd.

About 10 songs into it, Guitar John is trying to hold a conversation with
Acordion John while playing (he needs to practice at this).  After the song,
"They're shutting us down.  The fire marshall's here and says we have to 
quit.  We can just play one more song."  Then the band talked for a bit,
and G. John said, "This is a medly of our favorite tunes."  They played
Birdhouse, and at the end kind of extended it while John was saying, 
"This was writen by [...] called Frankenstein."  

This was obviously (at least to me, having seen them the night before)
their last song.  About 30 secs. into the song a Cop goes up on stage
and pulls at G Johns shirt, apparently trying to get his attention.
G John was guite perterbed at the entire situation and pulled away from
him, moving to the other side of the stage.  A plain clothed person
appeared next to the cop (club manager?) and signalled to the sound
guy to lower the levels.  The house lights came on.  The sound guy
turned the levels down, but upped the monitor levels.  The venue was
an old theater and had very good acoutics.  You could still hear them
easily, though the balance was off.  The band continued and about a 
minute before the song was over the sound man returned the speakers
to normal level.  The Cop just kind of stood next to the stage until
it was over.  G John oppoligized many times before they left the stage.
"Feel free to make some phone calls, or something.", espoused G John
before leaving the stage.

The police quickly marshalled the crowd from the club, not the best of
ideas in my opinion.  A critical mass could be reached when the police
start hearding patrons into the street (not really a problem with this
crowd, but the police were quite unaware of who they were dealing with)

On the rational side of things, the police *were* letting people hurriedly
purchace t-shirts and other trinkets before leaving the club.

A group of about 150 or so people gathered on a side street close to the
truck and bus.  They lingered for about an hour, singing various TMBG
tunes.  There was one officer that was getting a bit worried when everyone
started singing.  (I guess they though we'd break into some unnamed ICE T
tune)  She looked a bit confused when she started making out some of the
lyrics.  Soon all the cops had gathered next to the equipment truck and
made everyone get on the opposite side of the street.  (there were about
8 police in all)  After a while I think they figured out that it was just
a bunch of kids (at least at heart, if not in body) that were singing.  They
had come to have a good time, a would have it despite the efforts of the
police.

In all this time I saw only the bass player from the band.  The Johns were 
nowhere to be seen.  Either they were laying low on the bus, or being
"talked to" by autorities, I don't know.  We were hoping that they would
come outside with some accoustic instruments, but it didn't happen.


---
Bob Lanier, the mayor of Houston ran on a crackdown-on-crime agenda to
get elected.  Soon after being elected he ousted the (female) police chief
and increaced funding to bolster the size of the police farce.  Since then
there has been a crackdown on victimless crimes.  More traffic violations
are given out now than ever.  The vice squads (apparently unable to find
prostitutes or drug deallers) have rounded up all the patrons in bars and
charged them with PI (public intoxication).  And now they pull the plug on
one of the most wholesome, family-type entertainment, rock show that I've
been to in years.  It seems as if someone at The Vatican has gotten into
some political hot water, and this was just the wrong night to be there.

The Fire Marshall can shut down any establishment s/he wants to.  They need
no proof of number of patrons.  They just need to think that it is over
capacity.

Apparently the TABC (Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission) was at the show
as well.  I am not sure if they had anything to do with the shutdown.  I
can't imagine that they did.  The Vatican was being VERY strict about 
serving beer, and most (if not all) of the underaged patrons had no interest
in trying to thwart the system.  They were happy enough to buy t-shirts
and bounce around with friends.


One friend of mine said, "Great, now TMBG will never come back to Houston
again."  I hope he is wrong.  I hope the guys will maybe come back and 
finish the show after the tour is done.  I would like to think that the
Johns care more about their fans than the (slight) posibility of there
being a problem again.




I hope the show in you town goes better.
May the Fun Police not show up at your good time.




-- 
Bill Shirley
shirley@krakatoa.jsc.nasa.gov