That 1 Guy brings the Magic Pipe back to Missoula for the first time since 2020

Mike Silverman's one-man, homemade-instrument show lands at The Top Hat on Tuesday, Dec. 15 — his first Missoula date in more than six years.

Picture a seven-foot tangle of pipe, joints and bass strings standing in the middle of the stage at The Top Hat, and one guy in front of it slapping, plucking and stomping out a full band's worth of noise. That is the pitch, and it is happening again in Missoula.

That 1 Guy plays The Top Hat on Tuesday, Dec. 15, 2026, at 8 p.m. Tickets are $26.20 through Ticketmaster. The date was announced Oct. 27, and it ends a long gap: his last Missoula show on the books was at Monk's Bar in April 2020.

That 1 Guy is Mike Silverman, a Las Vegas-based musician who performs and records as a one-man band, singing over a rig of instruments he built himself. The centerpiece is the Magic Pipe, which Wikipedia describes as an electronically rigged pair of machined aluminum pipes — steel in its first version — joined by adjustable phosphor-bronze fittings. A Georgia Straight profile put it at roughly seven feet of plumbing, orchestral bass strings and electronics.

The thing exists because Silverman needed it to. He came up playing upright bass, and when commissioning a custom instrument proved too expensive, he built his own, borrowing ideas from the gutbucket and the diddley bow. His first parts run was reportedly to Home Depot, followed by a lot of trial and error.

What you get live is part bass solo, part drum machine, part vaudeville. The Pipe is wired to pedals, processors and drum triggers, so a slap on one section can fire a kick drum while a pluck on another holds down the low end. There's also the boot — a scorpion-emblazoned cowboy boot wired into the Pipe's audio lines — that he slaps for percussion. He sings and beatboxes over all of it, and reviewers have noted he'll play with his teeth and feet when his hands are busy.

One man, one homemade pipe, and a full band's worth of low end.

Silverman has built a career on the road, touring heavily enough that one report counted as many as 200 shows a year. Along the way he has released a run of solo records, including the concept album *The Moon Is Disgusting*, and a collaboration with guitarist Buckethead as The Frankenstein Brothers.

That kind of act was made for The Top Hat. The downtown room holds about 550, which is big enough to feel like a night out and small enough that you can watch exactly how he's making each sound — and with this show, that's half the fun. Expect a crowd that skews toward people who've seen him before and are bringing a friend to watch the reaction.

A Tuesday in mid-December is not the easiest night to talk anyone into, but it's a rare one: a touring oddity that hasn't been back in over six years, on a weeknight when the semester is winding down. Get there early, find a spot with a clear sightline to the Pipe, and bring the friend who has never seen him. Their face is the show.

Sources: That 1 Guy — Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org); That 1 Guy is more than happy to lay some Magic Pipe — Georgia Straight (straight.com); That 1 Guy concocts his own pipe dream — Lawrence Journal-World (www2.ljworld.com); That1Guy builds a long-lasting career — Toledo Blade (toledoblade.com); Ticketmaster: That 1 Guy, Missoula, Dec. 15, 2026 (ticketmaster.evyy.net); JamBase: That 1 Guy at The Top Hat (jambase.com)