Corner Hotel, April 23

Purple, red, light blue, yellow. What, no black? From their t-shirt counter to their strobe lights, They Might Be Giants do everything like a regular live action rock band, only as animated by Pixar.

The five-piece New York band led by wisecracking John Flansburgh and his smirking pal John Linnell must have powered through 30 small but perfectly formed songs on the first night of their almost sold-out Australian tour. Fifty if you count every channel hopping fragment of Fingertips.

The effect was part hits compilation, part cartoon marathon. New Linnell titles Lost My Mind and You're On Fire are very literal indications of the surreal scenarios they describe.

Other fine additions were Flansburgh's synth-vocal robot rally, Nanobots, and his weirdly sincere love song to an early 20th-century visionary, Tesla.

Linnell seemed less engaged with the old but necessary likes of Birdhouse In Your Soul and Ana Ng, delivered hard, as if to shake them to life. Choruses to nag your sleep were the big payoff for fans.

The late arrival of his bass clarinet was welcome. That and the accordion fanfare to Doctor Worm brought some of the TV variety flair of the pair's albums to the default rock feel of their live attack.

With 16 albums of fabulously loony tunes to choose from, perhaps only those buying two t-shirts or more needed the absurd crowd participation shout-off of Battle For The Planet of The Apes. But with TMBG's hyperactive ideas-per-minute quotient, no song outstays its welcome.

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