They Might Be Giants hits town for two nights, two different venues

John Flansburgh says more than 40 years of working with John Linnell as They Might Be Giants (TMBG) has been “just a crazy lifetime of doing it” — but is not entirely surprised they still are.

“We went into it very ambitious about what we could do, and what we had to say,” noted Flansburgh, 65, who met Linnell, 66, when both were teenagers in the Boston suburb of Lincoln, Mass., and joined forces musically after both moved to Brooklyn in 1981.

“No matter what’s happening with us individually, we come at this with very heightened expectations about what’s possible, and it’s a very optimistic project.”

That’s led to 23 studio albums — most recently “Book” in 2021 — as well as five children’s albums.

As TMBG, Flansburgh and Linnell have only had one outright hit single, 1990’s “Birdhouse in Your Soul,” but they’ve won three Grammy Awards, including for “Boss of Me” from the TV sitcom “Malcolm in the Middle” and for their “SpongeBob SquarePants: the Broadway Musical” score, which was nominated for a Tony Award.

“I would say midway through our long career we decided to start doing stuff other than just albums for our adult fans,” Linnell said.

“So we made a children’s record and we started doing a lot of commercial work and we did television and movies. So we very much branched out at that point, and that opened up a lot of avenues for us as well.

“I think we’re kind of generally feeling like we’re not just about any one thing. We don’t think of ourselves as a particular kind of band, or that we have a specific, set audience. We’re willing to go wherever we’re welcomed, I guess.”

TMBG’s current “The Big Show Tour” — which plays twice this weekend in Cleveland, at the Agora and Globe Iron — is the duo’s latest stretch. It’s actually shows, plural; each stop is more than one date in each town, giving the band a chance to flex the show from night to night and make each very different from the other.

“It’s a big change for us,” said Flansburgh, who takes the leading in crafting each night’s setlist — a process he calls a “kind of 3-D chess.” The concept, meanwhile, came to he and Linnell during the pandemic pause, which Flansburgh said “allowed us to rethink” our show.

“It’s ‘An Evening with’ show, so we’re doing two sets which is more elbow room to change up the repertoire from one night to the next,” he explained.

“If we’re doing a two-night stand in a city, we’re probably only doing 20 percent, 30 percent overlapping material from one show to the next. In general, we’re people pleasers and we try to keep the ball rolling. But with this, it’s sort of an interesting extra professional challenge to create two fully entertaining shows.”

Linnell considers the exercise to be “the same creative impulse we’ve always had, in that we don’t define what it is” they’re doing.

“We have a lot of longtime, very dedicated fans and then we also have people who have never heard of us and are maybe seeing us for the first time,” he said. “So we’re trying to balance those aspects of the audience and make sure it serves everybody and is… a very fun show in terms of the audience’s experience.”

This year’s touring also marks the 35th anniversary of TMBG’s third album, “Flood,” its major label debut and its most successful, the only platinum album in its discography. Its flight was propelled by “Birdhouse in Your Soul,” which reached No. 3 on Billboard’s Alternative Airplay chart and “Twisting,” which made it to No. 22.

TMBG had actually planned to commemorate “Flood’s” 30th anniversary in 2020, which was curtailed by the pandemic. The group continues to dip into it as a matter of course. Linnell said it remains “a beloved album” in its canon.

“That one just took us to a different label, playing internationally and everything,” Linnell said.

“From our perspective now it’s an album of the relatively young guys that we were at the time, so when we play it I kind of feel a bit like we’re covering another band ‘cause it was so long ago. I identify much more strongly with the new stuff we’ve done in this (21st century).

“But it’s great that people still like it, and we can go out and play those songs. We just try to keep it interesting and do fresh versions of them.”

There will be more of that new music soon, too. Linnell said TMBG has its follow-up to “Book” “in the can” and due for release in 2026.

“It’s a TMBG album,” he said. “It sounds exactly like us, but we’re trying to keep it fresh and interesting each time we do it.”

One of those elements this time is a cover, one that will endear them to Cleveland — the Raspberries’ Top 20 1975 single, “Overnight Sensation (Hit Record).”

“We thought it was particularly hilarious and ironic for us to be covering that one,” Linnell said, “because we’ve never really had a bit hit in the U.S., and obviously there’s no risk of us becoming an overnight sensation. But I just love that song so much, and we thought we could do a good version.”

Flansburgh, meanwhile, is confident this will hardly be the last twist he and Linnell have in store for fans.

“I think what’s really fortunate about our situation is we’re a duo at the core of it and we’re friends and we have a shared aesthetic that’s very strong,” he said.

“I think if one of us sort of gets beaten up by reality, the other one is there to buoy them along — that goes back and forth. I feel like it takes a lot of weight off of us and really keeps it interesting at the same time.”

They Might Be Giants perform Friday, Nov. 21 at The Agora, 5000 Euclid Ave., Cleveland. 216-881-2221 or agoracleveland.com. The group performs again Saturday, Nov. 22 at Globe Iron, 2325 Elm St., Cleveland. 440-775-2194 or globeironcle.com. Doors at 7 p.m. for each.