When I first heard that Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem were performing a live concert at San Francisco’s Outside Lands music festival, some questions immediately came to mind: How long could a live Mayhem show be? Would they stick to songs they’ve performed before, or try some new material? Also: How the heck were they going to have a rock band composed of puppets do a live concert, on a stage, in front of an audience?
I wasn’t able to make it to San Francisco for the show, but fortunately for me and for Lips enthusiasts everywhere, Outside Lands streamed the whole concert on their website and app. (And you can still watch it as of this writing!) I can only imagine how much fun it was to be there, because watching it hunched over my laptop was pretty great. Maybe even better, because I didn’t have to use Port-a-Potties.
Question #1: How long was the show? Answer: About half an hour. I can only assume the puppeteers determined that was the maximum amount of time they could continuously wiggle their dollies vigorously to the rock ‘n’ roll music. There were two interludes during which prerecorded videos were played, which must have been there to serve the dual purpose of entertaining the audience and ensuring that Eric Jacobson’s arm didn’t fall off. It would have been great if the show had been longer, but half an hour of live Electric Mayhem music still is half an hour more than we had a week ago.
Question #2: What songs would they perform? Answer: The band mostly did tunes that were new to them! And the Muppet performers nailed every one of them. They did the Electric Mayhem’s biggest hit “Can You Picture That?” — an obvious choice, but it would have felt wrong if they hadn’t done it. It would have been pretty exciting to you and me if they had done another number that originated with a Muppet production — “Night Life” or “Love Ya to Death” — but probably not a lot of the folks at that festival know the entire Mayhem discography, so it was a wise choice to go with covers.
Before “Can You Picture That” was a prerecorded cover of Scott McKenzie’s “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)” sung by Janice. After “Can You Picture That” was the Mowglis’ “San Francisco.” And later in the show came “Home” by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes, the Band’s “Ophelia,” and finally a Joe Cocker-style rendition of the Beatles’ “With a Little Help From My Friends,” complete with a big gospel choir. They did that last one once on The Muppet Show, but this sounded completely different. It was a fairly diverse selection for such a short set, with lyrical themes of love, home, and togetherness coming up frequently. Which makes sense, because there was always something hippie about the Electric Mayhem, and you can’t a city much more hippie than San Francisco.
Question #3: How did they do it? Answer: Impressively and seamlessly, I’d say! Muppets, and even members of the Electric Mayhem have performed in the presence of live audiences before… at MuppetFest, on Jimmy Kimmel Live. But I believe all the previous performances involved the standard tricks of hiding the puppeteers, either with a wall or by framing them out of the camera’s view. They could have easily gone with the wall trick for the concert, and in fact, Animal and Dr. Teeth were both obscured below the waist by their instruments. But to my pleasant astonishment, Floyd, Janice, Lips, and Zoot were seen from head to toe! There were no walls in sight! Though oddly enough, when Chance the Rapper performed later in the day, his lower half was obscured by a wall…
There were obviously multiple puppeteers involved, and it made the characters seem completely believable. When they really got into the music, their whole bodies got into the music, when it was time for Floyd and Janice to share a microphone, they ran across the stage to get there. The illusion was so immersive that I barely even noticed the strange lumps of black fabric that seemed to follow them all around.
As far as I could tell, the Muppet performers were singing live, rather than lip-syncing to recorded tracks. And if that’s true, I’d guess there was a live band just offstage helping them out. I’d love to see a behind-the-scenes look at how they pulled the whole thing off. The closest thing I’ve seen so far is this backstage video posted by Dana Gould on Instagram. How did he score backstage passes?!
The aforementioned in-between videos were fun, and they appeared to have a pretty decent budget for them. In one, the band used their GPS to help them get to various points of interest in the San Francisco area, although they had some trouble deciding what the GPS voice should sound like (British? Australian? Groupie?) In another, they all reminisced about how they met… Or they would have, if any of them could remember how or where or when they met. That turned into a meditation on the importance of their friendship and their fans, whose love is bottomless. (Speaking of bottomless, where did Zoot leave his pants?)
Toward the beginning of the show, Floyd welcomed the crowd to the first stop on the band’s world tour, before Dr. Teeth corrected him: It’s the only stop on their tour. But boy, it’ll be a shame if this is the first and last time they ever do this. I’m sure it took huge amounts of effort, but given how well it turned out (and how well it’s been received), I hope they’ll consider bringing some Mayhem to other festivals in the future. There are a lot of fans out there who would love to experience they who am, is, are, and be they whom as are known as the Electric Mayhem.
EXCITING THING: Did you miss the concert when it streamed? As of RIGHT NOW, you can watch it on Go90’s website, RIGHT HERE! Or try this YouTube video:
Thanks to Tough Pigs pal Noah Ginex for several of these photos! Click here to get by with a little help your friends on the Tough Pigs forum!
by Ryan Roe – Ryan@ToughPigs.com
