The Mountain Goats with Mothers at the Waiting Room, Omaha, 9/15/17

Driving south through Iowa at dusk

I went to Lincoln for a job interview of sorts. I reveled in the driving. It turns out that solo slogs across the lonely plains states, singing along to my car stereo, are my idea of a good time. It was the kind of interview that seems only to exist in my field: the one where someone already knows they want to hire you but the job may or may not exist. I gave a talk, met a bunch of really cool people, and spent a nice afternoon in a town I have only visited in songs. I left Lincoln for Omaha, crushed under the weight of not getting my hopes up. 

I planned to get to the venue at some point after doors opened, which is not my usual modus operandi. I was going to play it cool. I should preface this by saying that there is no such thing as a casual Mountain Goats fan, in my experience. Mountain Goats shows are a deeply and unsettlingly communal experience. The unsettling part comes because, in spite of having lived a life I cannot identify with and writing songs about divorce, drug abuse, professional wrestlers, and the west coast goth music scene, John Darnielle writes songs that just get me. JD has a way of finding the most universal sentiment in the most specific of situations. I think a lot of Mountain Goats fans would say some version of this same sentiment.

Anyway, I was accidentally first in line. Omaha crowds are too cool for school, I guess.

Mothers opened. They're a four-piece, folk/rock-influenced experimental band from Athens, Georgia.

Kristine Leschper of Mothers

Their music had a hypnotic quality, for me -- I was literally staring at the shoes of the frontperson, Kristine Leschper. It's not strongly melodic, so I have trouble paying attention to the lyrical content, which turns out to be the main thing I identify with in music.

JD came out barefoot, and he and Peter and John and Matt played a stellar opening set. I was almost uncomfortably close to the stage; there is no rail at the Waiting Room. The front row is where I love to be, but JD makes for a particularly intense concert experience because he will make eye contact with the first few rows for the entire performance. At one point, he looked me right in the eyes and sang "St. Joseph's baby aspirin/Bartles and Jaymes/And you/Or your memory". I'm not sure what to do in those situations. It's those moments that really make you realize that most performers don't look directly at members of the audience during the show.

The set was a little heavy on oddball songs, which I kind of love about the Mountain Goats catalog. I was a tad apprehensive about the Goths tour because JD writes really differently for guitar and piano, and for the first time, had released an all-piano record. His piano songs tend to be jazzy and complicated, while his guitar songs are straightforward and melodic. I was relieved to find that he had converted some of the Goths tunes to guitar numbers -- they were still jazzy and complicated, but they were also loud and higher energy than they might have been with JD sitting in a chair behind the piano.

I left afterward and attended the 5th anniversary of Pageturners Lounge, my favorite bar in Omaha and possibly the world.

Setlist:

John Darnielle

The Young Thousands
You or Your Memory
In the Craters on the Moon
Woke Up New
Unicorn Tolerance
--- (solo break)
The Grey King and the Silver Flame Attunement
Alpha Incipiens
Waco
Get Lonely
--- (full band)
Rain in Soho
Andrew Eldritch is Moving back to Leeds
Luna
Wear Black
Harlem Roulette
Foreign Object
Game Shows Touch our Lives
___

Liza Forever Minelli
Amy AKA Spent Gladiator #1
This Year
Up the Wolves