The Mountain Goats at the Varsity, Minneapolis, 10/24/12

Last Wednesday I caught the Mountain Goats with Matthew E. White at The Varsity, a venue in the University of Minnesota's "Dinkytown" neighborhood (think Campus Corner, Oklahomies). The venue was pretty interesting -- a big standing area on one level, with a circular balcony area with seating that seemed not to be open for this particular show. They had, unfortunately, decided to project a bunch of advertisements for upcoming shows on a retractable projector screen in front of the stage. I found this obnoxious, and it cost the venue some points in my book.

Matthew E. White opened with a band of 10, including two keyboardists, two percussionists, and a horn section. I found the lyrics repetitive and some of the subject matter kind of presumptuous, but considering those things along with my general dislike of horns, I liked it surprisingly much. They were from Richmond, Virginia, and spent a rather long time talking about Richmond, Virginia.

It turns out that Matthew E. White's horn section had played on the Mountain Goats new release, Transcendental Youth, and they came back out later to jam with the Mountain Goats.

John Darnielle is a lot of fun live. He plays whatever he wants, without working from a setlist, which he described as a philosophical choice -- like not having a scripted setlist was all that was left of the rock'n'roll spirit. "Something about it has to be alien and unplanned, or else it's bogus." This means that audience requests and whims play a big role in what gets played. He also plays from any point in his vast catalog, which results in my hearing songs I've never heard before. There is usually a segment during which he excuses his bassist and drummer to play alone, and sometimes he'll deny crowd requests. There was one guy shouting for "Going to Georgia" and finally John stopped and said he wasn't playing that song, that it was misogynistic "and it has a nice melody and everything but we can do without it." That wasn't the only awkward moment created by audience requests. Shouts for "You're in Maya" were obliged, but John mentioned his constant surprise that people request the sad ones at live shows. "Hey, this is a great party! Now let's hear the one about abuse!" To be fair, John Darnielle has written a lot of songs about abuse, and some of them are really great songs.



Here's the setlist:
Love Love Love
Psalms 40:2
Harlem Roulette
Hast Thou Considered the Tetrapod
Until I Am Whole
Amy (AKA Spent Gladiator I)
Up the Wolves
Dance Music
You're in Maya
The Last Day of Jimi Hendrix's Life
You Were Cool
Color in Your Cheeks
Ezekiel 7 and the Permanent Efficacy of Grace
The Diaz Brothers
In Memory of Satan
White Cedar
Cry for Judas
Palmcorder Yajna
Spent Gladiator II
--
Transcendental Youth
This Year
--
The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton

"Love Love Love" was a fantastic way to start. "Hast Thou Considered the Tetrapod" was played at a frenzied pace that made everyone want to dance, despite the subject matter (more abuse). Where the album version is sad and insistent, it was furious. I never expected to have so much fun listening to that song. Other highlights for me were "Dance Music" (yet another one about abuse), and "The Last Day of Jimi Hendrix's Life," which really differentiates Jimi Hendrix from no one else who has lived and mostly makes people laugh. "You Were Cool" was one of the many I'd never heard before, and I loved it (someone recorded it at the show, and you can hear it here). "Palmcorder Yajna" always plays well live (sometimes Ben Gibbard covers it live -- stay tuned for my next post about Ben Gibbard live).

The encore was the title track from the new record and "This Year," a must for a Mountain Goats live show. It was introduced by way of apology, and you can catch that in the video below. The horn section gave it some extra complexity, and John Darnielle's addition of "...and it almost killed me" was a nod to The Hold Steady, whose Craig Finn is from the Twin Cities and who allude to the song on one of their own albums. Definitely added a little something.

What was really surprising was that after the encore, the crowd's feeble chant of "one more song" managed to bring the band back out. John was playing around on his keyboard and taking about a job as a nurse at a psychiatric hospital when he was younger, at the height of Satanic Panic. When he started playing "The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton" on the keyboard, I thought I might burst from happiness. I missed the lonely, gritty quality of the song when played by one guitar and recorded on a boombox in a basement, but it sounded nice played by the whole band. If you get a chance to see the Mountain Goats, on this tour or another, do it.