We will get there when we get there; don't you worry.
I've just returned from an excellent Mountain Goats show in Grand Rapids. It was, without a doubt, one of my favorite live experiences to date. Here are some (mostly paraphrased) gems from the always-quotable John Darnielle:
Douchebag in audience: "FREE BIRD!"
JD: "I'm going to assume you're doing that because you want to hear my thing about how I feel about people who do that, because you probably think it's funny, but it's kind of boring to me now because I've been doing it for sooooo looooong. [Long pause] Though Jonathan Meiburg has been known to actually start playing "Free Bird" if you call it out to him."
(Meiburg is the lead singer of Shearwater, whom I discovered when they opened for TMG four years ago. I LOVED that their spirit was still present this time around, too.)
"So this is a song about.................hm. [Long pause. Laughter from audience.] Haha. Hm. Yeah, I guess it's about.......... Well, you know, the things we do to test those who love us. I mean, the Almighty spends so much of the Bible talking about his capacity to forgive us. 'Ohhhhhh reeeeeaallly.'"
(This was before Psalms 40:2, my favorite song from the new album.)
"It's so nice to be here with you guys tonight. This is the first time we've played these songs as a band in front of an audience, and you always feel a little rusty at the beginning of a tour, still getting your bearings with all the comings and goings, so it's great that you've been so awesome. [Pause] I feel like I have to add a legal disclaimer because I did play these songs in Europe a few weeks ago, but that was just me and a guitar and not the band. So this is still the first time for this kind of situation. [Pause] There, that was me being 5 years old, arguing every point into the ground. I feel good justifying it to my 5-year-old self. You should always be good to your 5-year-old self."
"So it's like six of one, half a dozen......Hail Marys."
"So this song is called Deutoronomy 2:10. [Pause] You know, when you have a sort of megalomaniacal side, like anyone who has the idea of 'Oh, let me write songs and perform them in front of a group of strangers!' -- whenever you write a song with that kind of a title, you wonder what it would be like if it became the new 'Going to Georgia' of the set. Like, instead of that, you have people shouting out 'DEUTORONOMY 2:10!!!!!!!'" That would be a nice counterpoint to, like, those people who hold the John 3:16 signs, you know?"
"These next 2 songs are about Genesis. The thing that's always struck me about Genesis is the absence of God in it. That and the part about circumcision. I was going to write a song about that, about a foreskin touching someone's forehead or whatever, but then I realized that all the reviews would say 'wow, he's really preoccupied with the whole foreskin issue, that must be representative of some big part of his life.'"
"You know, whenever I go to these kinds of shows, where the songwriter tells these true stories, or stories I assume to be true, I always wonder if it would be more interesting if I totally just made something up. Like, 'This next song was inspired by the Aztec god So-and-So, who descended upon me in a dream and whispered the opening verse in my ear, after which he ripped.....something or other.'"
"And this verse is interesting to me because....okay, well, maybe I shouldn't go into....You know what, this is Calvin College, so I can get away with this. It's the [stuff I don't remember], and the complexity and the....effulgence (Can I say that? "Effulgence?") of it all."
(The venue was part of Calvin College and the crowd seemed to be mostly students.)
"Okay, so I realized I can't reference 'Going to Georgia' and then some guy in the audience goes 'YEAH!' and then not play 'Going to Georgia.'"
(Going to Georgia was the last song of the encore, and it was well worth the wait. They didn't play it when I saw it 4 years ago, and it's probably one of my top 5 Goats songs, so I about died hearing it tonight.)
The Life of the World to Come, the Mountain Goats' current album, is based entirely on Bible verses. John Darnielle, like me, is a lapsed Catholic. He has described the albums' content as "12 hard lessons" certain verses taught him. Read Pitchfork's review of The Life of the World to Come here.
Douchebag in audience: "FREE BIRD!"
JD: "I'm going to assume you're doing that because you want to hear my thing about how I feel about people who do that, because you probably think it's funny, but it's kind of boring to me now because I've been doing it for sooooo looooong. [Long pause] Though Jonathan Meiburg has been known to actually start playing "Free Bird" if you call it out to him."
(Meiburg is the lead singer of Shearwater, whom I discovered when they opened for TMG four years ago. I LOVED that their spirit was still present this time around, too.)
"So this is a song about.................hm. [Long pause. Laughter from audience.] Haha. Hm. Yeah, I guess it's about.......... Well, you know, the things we do to test those who love us. I mean, the Almighty spends so much of the Bible talking about his capacity to forgive us. 'Ohhhhhh reeeeeaallly.'"
(This was before Psalms 40:2, my favorite song from the new album.)
"It's so nice to be here with you guys tonight. This is the first time we've played these songs as a band in front of an audience, and you always feel a little rusty at the beginning of a tour, still getting your bearings with all the comings and goings, so it's great that you've been so awesome. [Pause] I feel like I have to add a legal disclaimer because I did play these songs in Europe a few weeks ago, but that was just me and a guitar and not the band. So this is still the first time for this kind of situation. [Pause] There, that was me being 5 years old, arguing every point into the ground. I feel good justifying it to my 5-year-old self. You should always be good to your 5-year-old self."
"So it's like six of one, half a dozen......Hail Marys."
"So this song is called Deutoronomy 2:10. [Pause] You know, when you have a sort of megalomaniacal side, like anyone who has the idea of 'Oh, let me write songs and perform them in front of a group of strangers!' -- whenever you write a song with that kind of a title, you wonder what it would be like if it became the new 'Going to Georgia' of the set. Like, instead of that, you have people shouting out 'DEUTORONOMY 2:10!!!!!!!'" That would be a nice counterpoint to, like, those people who hold the John 3:16 signs, you know?"
"These next 2 songs are about Genesis. The thing that's always struck me about Genesis is the absence of God in it. That and the part about circumcision. I was going to write a song about that, about a foreskin touching someone's forehead or whatever, but then I realized that all the reviews would say 'wow, he's really preoccupied with the whole foreskin issue, that must be representative of some big part of his life.'"
"You know, whenever I go to these kinds of shows, where the songwriter tells these true stories, or stories I assume to be true, I always wonder if it would be more interesting if I totally just made something up. Like, 'This next song was inspired by the Aztec god So-and-So, who descended upon me in a dream and whispered the opening verse in my ear, after which he ripped.....something or other.'"
"And this verse is interesting to me because....okay, well, maybe I shouldn't go into....You know what, this is Calvin College, so I can get away with this. It's the [stuff I don't remember], and the complexity and the....effulgence (Can I say that? "Effulgence?") of it all."
(The venue was part of Calvin College and the crowd seemed to be mostly students.)
"Okay, so I realized I can't reference 'Going to Georgia' and then some guy in the audience goes 'YEAH!' and then not play 'Going to Georgia.'"
(Going to Georgia was the last song of the encore, and it was well worth the wait. They didn't play it when I saw it 4 years ago, and it's probably one of my top 5 Goats songs, so I about died hearing it tonight.)
The Life of the World to Come, the Mountain Goats' current album, is based entirely on Bible verses. John Darnielle, like me, is a lapsed Catholic. He has described the albums' content as "12 hard lessons" certain verses taught him. Read Pitchfork's review of The Life of the World to Come here.