From the Post-Dispatch: They Might Be Giants will play Soulard Mardi Gras
Longtime darlings of the alternative music scene, They Might Be Giants will play a free concert at 6:30 p.m. Feb. 17. Local cover act Wyld Stallyns will perform at 3 p.m. The concerts will take place at Russell Boulevard and Broadway in Soulard's commercial district. Organizers have expanded Mardi Gras eastward this year to ease congestion in the neighborhood's residential core.
They Might Be Giants is "the perfect band for Mardi Gras," says promoter Mike Kociela of Entertainment St. Louis. "They have a very fun and eclectic feel. That's what Mardi Gras is all about. I think we really nailed it."
Mike, you might be right.
They Might Be Giants is popular enough to lure revelers away from Soulard's bars to the neighborhood's commercial edge. But the pop outfit is not so well-known that it will draw a tidal wave of new fans. Mardi Gras already attracts hundreds of thousands of revelers; bigger crowds are the last thing organizers want.
It is amazing to see how this event has grown over the years. When I was in college I knew some of the folks who organized the early Soulard Mardi Gras events, and back then they were happy to get a couple hundred folks out to see the "parade." (If such it could have been called back then.) I used to go down to McGurk's to see Garvis Matte and The Branch Playboys (from Lafayette, Louisiana) every year, back when you could still get in the building and grab a table at 8 PM.
Now, the party goers number in the hundred thousands, and a lot of folks in Soulard wish no one had ever started organizing such an event.
If I was in St. Louis, and not in the frozen expanse of west central Wisconsin, I think a free show from TMBG would have been just the ticket. They might not be a Zydeco band from Cajun country, but they can play a mean polka.
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