the Mountain Goats in Northampton and Somerville

Crossposted from the blog.

Last week, I hit two Mountain Goats shows. For those of you who don't know, the Mountain Goats is one of my favorite bands. On this tour, the Mountain Goats are just John Darnielle, without his backing band. Opening up for him is John Vanderslice. I don't know JV's music all that well, but he put on a solid show both nights. He was funny and played a few decent songs and a couple really good songs each night. I may hit his tour later this Spring.

But this review isn't about JV, it's about the Mountain Goats.

Northampton.

I arrived at Pearl Street what I thought was a few minutes early. Turns out I wasn't; there was a pretty long line outside the building. When I finally got in, the place was packed. It was in the clubroom, which isn't as big as the ballroom upstairs. This turned out to be awesome, because the small intimate setting made for a great show.

John came out and told us that the theme for the setlist that night was "ask a hardcore." As in, there are probably going to be a bunch of songs you don't know, so ask a hardcore fan what it is if you get lost. Awesome. And then he opened with a song I'd never heard before, an old song from the mid 90's that never made an album. Even awesomer.

The third song in, You or Your Memory, off of the Sunset Tree was where things started to get really good, though. Just a few seconds in, John stops playing because everyone in the place is singing along with him. That's not uncommon at Mountain goats shows, but it isn't especially common for that particular song, so it caught him off guard. John seems to love it when people sing along, so he was really happy about it, and launched right back into the song, and we all launched right back into the song with him.

It continued that way for most of the night--tons of singing along. It got John in a really good mood. A couple highlights from the middle of the set were Elijah, which on the album is one of the quietest songs, but was one of the loudest songs of the night, and Abide With Me. Yeah, the hymn. Surprisingly it wasn't the first time I've been to a rock show that involved that song, but John put a much better spin on it than Amanda Palmer's mother.

Another highlight was Going to Alaska, which John described as "the reason the Mountain Goats exist." It was one the first of his poems he ever set to music. It was a r eal treat to hear.

He also played Dance Music, one of the bigger sing along songs he has. Being there, screaming along with several hundred people "I don't want to die alone" was a hell of an experience. He closed out the main set with John Vanderslice coming back out, and playing a few songs with him, including some stuff off of their new EP about cannibals on the moon. The last song was No Children, another of the big sing along songs, and that was a ton of fun.

Somehow, though the encore got even better. He played My Favorite Things, which is a really old song that he never released and only played rarely. He also played Going to Georgia, which is one of the three or four most popular songs he has written, at least among fans. The coolest thing he played, though, was "a silly little song" he wrote some years back, which he never plays. It's called Golden Boy and it is about peanuts. He asked us to not talk about it, but the beans have already been spilled elsewhere and it isn't like more than one or two of you even care or know what I'm talking about.

He left the stage, and we pounded the floor and clapped our hands and yelled and he came out and played a couple more songs for us, including Alpha Sun Hat, which was awesome.

The room was cramped, intimate, and loud, with the crowd screaming along all night, the setlist was amazing, and John was having a great time. It all added up to one of the five best rock shows I've ever been to. It was the kind of show that made a fan of everyone in the building.

Somerville.

The next night, the Mountain Goats played a show at the Somerville Theater, and it could not have been any more different from the Northampton show.

First, I need to thank Owen for getting me a ticket. The show was sold out and there was no way I was gettig in without your help.

The Somerville Theater is a seated venue, with a high stage, and two levels of seating. It holds more people than Pearl Street does. Despite that, it was a much quieter and more laid back show.

John opened by saying that a lot of the time when he gets a lot of requests yelled at him, people will start yelling "Play whatever you want." He decided to take that to heart and built his setlist based on this.

There was an air of reverence in the room; everyone wanted to be quiet and hear the songs that John wanted to play. And they included some real treats. He opened with I Love You, Let's Light Ourselves On Fire off of the unreleased album Hail and Farewell, Gothenburg, which is a song I never expected to hear live. Soon after that he played the, as far as I know unreleased November Love song, which was a really moving experience. He continued to play softer songs like those, and the audience was held captivated.

He later said that if he was playing stuff only stuff he wanted to hear, it would only be fair to take a few requests. He picked a few people at random and they picked some really good stuff for him to play. We got Going to Alaska again, which was fantastic. Someone also got him to play Beach House, a song about how evil seals (the sea mammals) are. That's something he rarely(if ever) plays, so it was fantastic t hear it.

He also played The Sign. Yeah, the Ace of Base song.e It's a song he plays from time to time. Most people probably assume he plays it ironically. Like, "Hey look, indie guy is playing a super pop hit." But John loves the song and plays it in earnest. Finally a couple people sing along.

Again, John Vanderslice came out and played a few songs with the Mountain Goats. They then left the stage, and got a huge standing ovation.

When John came back out for the encore, he asked that everyone stand back up and come closer to the stage. The highlights of the encore were
Commandante and This Year.

It was a completely different experience from the night before. Amazingly so, in fact. It felt like a completely different band, really. I preferred the Northampton show, but they were both great.

Basically what I'm trying to say is next time I tell you to go se a band, you should probably do it.