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The Mountain Goats in SF!
Jul. 1st, 2012 11:47 pmThis past Wednesday, Lindsey and I made the trip up to the city to see the Mountain Goats!
We left work slightly early, hopped on the CalTrain, and made our way to the concert venue, the lovely Swedish American Hall, and were there just in time to see the opening act, Dustin Wong, starting his show. I was kind of enjoying the experimental floaty guitar bits layered together with a sampler, but I was mostly hungry, so I ducked out for a bit to find some food. I made it back in time for the last few minutes of Dustin Wong, which was very nice, so that was exactly the right decision.
And then before too long, John Darnielle came on stage and immediately busted into his first song. He was performing solo, but at the end of the first song he had this enormous smile as he said, "hi, we're the Mountain Goats!" I thought this was really charming.
I'd listened to some of his work before [0], especially since Lindsey is such a big fan, but I don't think I'd really understood how much he gets into it. He's got this fantastic nervous energy while he's performing; he's smiling one moment, shaking his head furiously the next, kind of yelping sometimes while he sings. He looks so happy, and occasionally surprised. He's not a virtuoso guitarist, but that's not the point: he's strumming the hell out of that D chord. And he tells these lovely rambling stories about his life (which has been pretty rough in places) as he goes. And to say that the audience loved it would be a serious understatement.
He also brought up the idea that maybe the reason why he has to keep looking at his set list is that he hadn't seen it before the show. Maybe there's somebody else (a friend? a mysterious shadowy figure??) that writes them for him every performance, and for whatever reason he's never mentioned this, nor why this might be the case...
Just a beautiful show. We should go to more shows maybe!
Lindsey made a step in the direction of going to more shows by going to see The Mountain Goats the subsequent night, this time with her friend Emily.
[0] Here's my favorite song of his, which he didn't play, but whatevs. Consider that the lyrics include "Hail Satan!!" before blasting this loud at work, say if you work in a church.
We left work slightly early, hopped on the CalTrain, and made our way to the concert venue, the lovely Swedish American Hall, and were there just in time to see the opening act, Dustin Wong, starting his show. I was kind of enjoying the experimental floaty guitar bits layered together with a sampler, but I was mostly hungry, so I ducked out for a bit to find some food. I made it back in time for the last few minutes of Dustin Wong, which was very nice, so that was exactly the right decision.
And then before too long, John Darnielle came on stage and immediately busted into his first song. He was performing solo, but at the end of the first song he had this enormous smile as he said, "hi, we're the Mountain Goats!" I thought this was really charming.
I'd listened to some of his work before [0], especially since Lindsey is such a big fan, but I don't think I'd really understood how much he gets into it. He's got this fantastic nervous energy while he's performing; he's smiling one moment, shaking his head furiously the next, kind of yelping sometimes while he sings. He looks so happy, and occasionally surprised. He's not a virtuoso guitarist, but that's not the point: he's strumming the hell out of that D chord. And he tells these lovely rambling stories about his life (which has been pretty rough in places) as he goes. And to say that the audience loved it would be a serious understatement.
He also brought up the idea that maybe the reason why he has to keep looking at his set list is that he hadn't seen it before the show. Maybe there's somebody else (a friend? a mysterious shadowy figure??) that writes them for him every performance, and for whatever reason he's never mentioned this, nor why this might be the case...
Just a beautiful show. We should go to more shows maybe!
Lindsey made a step in the direction of going to more shows by going to see The Mountain Goats the subsequent night, this time with her friend Emily.
[0] Here's my favorite song of his, which he didn't play, but whatevs. Consider that the lyrics include "Hail Satan!!" before blasting this loud at work, say if you work in a church.
