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John Flansburgh, who is recovering from a serious car crash, and John Linnell, who is recovering from COVID-19, will take the stage at Asbury Lanes on Aug. 30 and 31. Then, they will hit several other venues along the East Coast before heading out to Minnesota and Illinois.
For some 40 years, the band has released numerous albums, covered several genres and even won two Grammys.
“We have a very, very enthusiastic fan base and they were ready to wait to come see us,” Linnell said. “Ticket holders overwhelmingly chose to hold on to their tickets and wait for the rescheduled shows."
There will be something for old and new fans as the band will play material throughout their catalogue that spans 36 years, the artists tell Daily Voice. Setlists will include material from TMBG's latest album "Book," which was released last fall, and songs from their most popular album Flood, released in 1990.
"We are we obviously are testing everybody's patience by continuing to make new albums and putting out new material," he says. "But a lot of people liked our new material too, so we feel like we're not pissing anybody off."
The project contains hits like “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” and “Birdhouse in Your Soul.” Linnell even said there’s a special surprise in store for fans of the album.
“We learned how to play one song from the Flood album backwards,” Linnell said. “It was really hard to learn it and now we're committed, and we will at least impress ourselves if nobody else.”
Looking back at their career, Linnell says he credits the success of TMBG to never putting themselves in a specific category or box and letting their style speak for itself.
"We've just been kind of intuitively following our own path," he said. "[We] don't tend to kind of make general statements to each other about what it is we're trying to do. We just hear stuff we like and we go in that direction."
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