Set Times

Turf Club
St Paul

DOORS / DJ
7:00PM

THAT 1 GUY
8:00PM

Although not advertised as “an evening with…” (code for no opener, just the main artist), it was a solo evening over at St. Paul’s Turf Club, with the extremely inventive That 1 Guy (aka Mike Silverman). If you aren’t familiar with him, That 1 Guy has fashioned a series of one of a kind instruments, most notably the “magic pipe”, a nearly seven foot tall pair of electronically outfitted aluminum pipes with a bass string that can be plucked, bowed and generally make some pretty amazing sounds. It also includes a stand that has foot triggered percussion effects. With half a dozen albums, including 2020’s Set the Controls for the Heart of the Buttnoggin, you quickly get sense of an eccentric, but extremely creative mind.

Though there wasn’t an official opener, there was a fine DJ set that early on leaned towards darker, electronic songs that were a pretty good mood setter. That 1 Guy had no designs to spend most of the time between doors and show in the green room, but rather spent the time talking to fans, and it included card tricks up until about 15 minutes to show time. Getting started a little late, we finally got the artist on stage. After ensuring everything was in tune and ready, he led straight into his hypnotic bass heavy sounding music. With three screens behind him displaying ambient visuals, That 1 Guy laid into some high tempo work, slapping those strings with both hands, and running percussion as well. It was an intense set up and Silverman was working, needing to activate certain effects with a raised foot. By the time he hit lyrics late in the second song, the mood was set with the dark bass and the psychedelic visuals behind him. When he took off his hat (with therimin style sound effect) to reveal he had another hat on, it was pretty much par for the course.

With a platypus sock puppet starting the next number, That 1 Guy kept things light hearted in the best possible way. Packs a Wallop was a ridiculously silly hit and the audience let loose mid way through. His deep baritone vocals added to the overall musical effect and had a couple of false endings that were delightful rather than annoying. Some vocal loop effects to start the next song gave some clever complexity and we also had the introduction of another instrument, the magic boot (electrified, of course). A particularly loud number combined with different vocal scatting was a set up to a great interaction with the audience regarding who was nicer and ended in a “it’s great being in Minnesota, it’s all so nice”.

Into the Whale Race, That 1 Guy had absolutely pulled the crowd in and was starting to fly high. (Side note: being next to someone seeing him for the first time, he turned to me and said, “I feel like the smile isn’t coming off”, which is one of the greatest compliments I think a musician could ever receive.) This was the longest song of the evening, and let Silverman show off his musical chops all in the guise of that race, with a tremendous interlude before getting into the final verse and the start of the actual race. That 1 Guy laughed, saying “this is supposed to be work and you’re making it fun”… And it got sillier as he went into Buttmachine, which may be as good as an introduction as any to his work. A cover of Rush’s Tom Sawyer was pretty impressive and had all aspects of foot percussion and bass effect in full gear. The card tricks that appeared late in the set were fun and That 1 Guy was keeping the audience fully engaged. A long song about the moon being made of cheese continued to highlight his humor and the crowd was following along in full “woo” mode. Approaching the end, there was a hilarious walk/crawl to the back of the stage to pretend he had left and came back that led to the encore. Buttnoggin vs That1Guy took time to set up, but was a great way to close out a very unique set and musical experience.