If anybody comes to see me, tell them they just missed me by a minute.
Rise if you're sleeping, stay awake.
We are young supernovas and the heat's about to break.
I had tickets to two Mountain Goats show: one pre-the-release of All Eternals Deck in New York, and one post-the-release in Philly. The first was last night.
Let's do this.
Venue: The Bowery Ballroom. To this day, it remains the best venue in New York City.
Seats/Position in Crowd/Up-In-Itness: We hung around the back of the general-admission crowd, at first by choice and then because Mountain Goats fans are super-intense about being in the front. It's cool, though; I'm just now learning that the further back you stand, the more you can see of the stage at once.
OPQ (Old-Person Quotient): Medium. A GA show on a Monday isn't ideal, especially when you have to interview someone at 8:30 am the next day. But there was only one opening band, the Mountain Goats took the stage at 10 pm, and we cabbed it back to Brooklyn like old people so we didn't get home too too late. My ears do hurt today, though, and the show wasn't even that loud.
Opening Act: Megafaun, a band that's better than its name. They had a fun banjo-thing going on, and they kept telling us what an awesome crowd we were for doing basic audience things like paying any attention to them the tiniest bit. There was a bit too many audience-participation moments for my taste, but I don't really blame them for it.
Setlist: Jesse posted the setlist, as per usual. It was mostly new. And by new, I don't just mean the songs from All Eternals Deck, though he did play seven of the album's thirteen songs. He also went back into his catalogue and re-learned older songs for the tour. This is good and bad, because while it keeps things fresh, I really like the old touring songs. Every time one of these concerts comes up, I'm all, "All Mountain Goats songs are good, I don't care what they play." And then every time he comes on stage, I think, "If he doesn’t play 'Palmcorder Yajna' I'm going to die!" Both things are true. Thankfully, he did have a lot of oldies-but-goodies in there, especially towards the end of the set. I got to hear "Palmcorder Yajna," so I didn’t have to die. "Broom People" and "Dilaudid" are others I've heard before that I love hearing live, too. But there are definitely advantages to getting some new ones mixed in there. Namely, "Going to Georgia!"
High Point: Craig Finn! "This Year!" Craig Finn trading verses with John Darnielle during "This Year!" It's funny, because I thought that the full band gave the Mountain Goats a more Hold Steady sound, since there was a keyboard and sometimes you could hear piano parts under the rest of the song in a pretty Franz-esque way. And then John Darnielle quoted the thing that Craig Finn always says at the end of his shows about how there is so much joy in what they do. And then he came out on stage, and they sang together, and it was amazing. "I am gonna make it through this year if it kills me…and it almost killed me."
Low Point: It's getting to the point where the worst part of every concert I go to is the other people at the concert. The fact that Darnielle accepts one out of every nine requests shouted at him doesn't help discourage the intense weirdoes at his shows. So, other people, you're passionate enough about the Mountain Goats to shout "Cubs in Five!" in between every song-but not really a big enough fan to know that he never, ever plays it? (Or do you think that this will finally be the day he'll break it out, because you screamed it out?) Be cool, weirdoes, all of his songs are good!
Exuberance: High. There was jumping. Feasting. Dancing. And, if you don't believe me, there is video proof.
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