(no subject)
Jul. 25th, 2019 02:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seekingferretA few nights ago I saw the Mountain Goats in Asbury Park. We had a violent thunderstorm a few hours before the show around here, so a number of the roads both on the way there and in Asbury Park were blocked by fallen trees. That was exciting!
Because of apocalypse related traffic and detours, I got to the show about five minutes before opener Erin McKeown went on. She was really good, and it was really amazing to hear her cover of the Mountain Goats' "Jenny" as featured in I Only Listen to the Mountain Goats, with John Darnielle popping onstage a verse into the song to play keyboard and sing backup vocals. ("It surprises me every night!" McKeown joked.)
Then came the main show, which was wonderful. They started and finished the show with songs from my favorite Mountain Goats album, "The Life of the World to Come", and in a double fit of luck, they were both Old Testament songs so I didn't have the squeamishness I feel sometimes listening to, say, "Matthew 25:21". But no, the first song was "1 Samuel 15:23" and the final encore was "Psalms 40:2" and it was amazing. "Psalms 40:2" put me in such a happy place. It was delightful to skate the line of the irony of Darnielle's lyrics. My faith is as passionate as the narrator of Psalms 40:2, but channeled very differently.
I was less comfortable with skating the irony in the crowd dancing to "Sicilian Crest" off the new record, which as Darnielle is very explicit about, is about the appeal of fascism. I think it's an excellent song, and I have been thinking about how to make it viddable, but dancing to it was a bridge too far for me.
Otherwise they darted through the catalog, which is deeper and richer than I have delved into it. I'm probably deeply familiar with five or six Mountain Goats records (Hmm... Tallahassee, The Sunset Trees, All Hail West Texas, Moon Colony Bloodbath, The Life of the World to Come, Beat the Champ. Six.), and intimate with a dozen or so other songs. The Mountain Goats have a lot more music than that, though, and much as I wanted to hear the songs I know well, it was just as exciting to hear new things. Darnielle's 'creative anarchy', as I've referred to it before, leads him to create shows that never commit to a pattern. That is probably the most exciting part of a Mountain Goats show, the fact that Darnielle himself, the ringleader, seems rapt at all times, ready for the good things to come.
Because of apocalypse related traffic and detours, I got to the show about five minutes before opener Erin McKeown went on. She was really good, and it was really amazing to hear her cover of the Mountain Goats' "Jenny" as featured in I Only Listen to the Mountain Goats, with John Darnielle popping onstage a verse into the song to play keyboard and sing backup vocals. ("It surprises me every night!" McKeown joked.)
Then came the main show, which was wonderful. They started and finished the show with songs from my favorite Mountain Goats album, "The Life of the World to Come", and in a double fit of luck, they were both Old Testament songs so I didn't have the squeamishness I feel sometimes listening to, say, "Matthew 25:21". But no, the first song was "1 Samuel 15:23" and the final encore was "Psalms 40:2" and it was amazing. "Psalms 40:2" put me in such a happy place. It was delightful to skate the line of the irony of Darnielle's lyrics. My faith is as passionate as the narrator of Psalms 40:2, but channeled very differently.
I was less comfortable with skating the irony in the crowd dancing to "Sicilian Crest" off the new record, which as Darnielle is very explicit about, is about the appeal of fascism. I think it's an excellent song, and I have been thinking about how to make it viddable, but dancing to it was a bridge too far for me.
Otherwise they darted through the catalog, which is deeper and richer than I have delved into it. I'm probably deeply familiar with five or six Mountain Goats records (Hmm... Tallahassee, The Sunset Trees, All Hail West Texas, Moon Colony Bloodbath, The Life of the World to Come, Beat the Champ. Six.), and intimate with a dozen or so other songs. The Mountain Goats have a lot more music than that, though, and much as I wanted to hear the songs I know well, it was just as exciting to hear new things. Darnielle's 'creative anarchy', as I've referred to it before, leads him to create shows that never commit to a pattern. That is probably the most exciting part of a Mountain Goats show, the fact that Darnielle himself, the ringleader, seems rapt at all times, ready for the good things to come.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-07-25 11:26 pm (UTC)I never really think of MCB as a MG album, though, because it's explicitly "plus Vanderslice," not "Vanderslice as a MG."
(no subject)
Date: 2019-07-28 04:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-07-28 03:13 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-07-28 04:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-07-28 06:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-07-28 06:39 pm (UTC)