Gig: The Mountain Goats

The Mountain Goats (Megafaun)

The Opera House. Sunday, April 3, 2011.

I've never been a big fan of The Opera House, and this trip down to Queen Street East did nothing to change that opinion. Getting into the venue is something like passing through customs to North Korea, a series of lineups and random, redundant security checks — I was asked if I had any "cigarettes" more than once. That was more than enough to drain away my enthusiasm, especially as the slowness of it all meant that I missed the bulk of the set by openers Megafaun.

I probably wasn't in the best frame of mind by this point, so the fact that what I did hear didn't do anything for me is probably inconclusive at best. What came off as hey y'all twang-ish pleasantness might have had something more substantial behind it.

As I moved up between sets, I was faced with another one of the venue's least-pleasant features — in a full house, the lower floor near the stage gets uncomfortably packed. At least, looking around, it appeared that this was a bit of an older, fannish, non-rowdy kind of crowd. That's about be what one'd expect for The Mountain Goats, a band that has a lot of highly-passionate fans who feel a strong connection to bandleader John Darnielle, whose lyrics transcend most singer/songwriter pitfalls by remaining grounded to the mundane while cutting deeply and incisively into the dark reams of pain and soul-damage.

In this crowd with plenty hardcore enthusiasts¹, I was actually here as something of a curiosity-seeker. For a band that does inspire such strong devotion, I'm actually a rather casual Mountain Goats fan, getting into them only around the time of 2008's Heretic Pride. As such, this was my first chance to see them, as they hadn't passed through town since '07 — in the band's duo days before drummer John Wurster was in the fold. They're now a relatively-expansive four-piece, with longtime bassist Peter Hughes complemented by touring keyboard player Yuval Semo.

Given the preciseness and detail that Darnielle musters, it was a disappointment that the set began with a pre-recorded skit/entry music that led off with a cheery, "hi, America!", which is never endearing to a Canadian crowd. I was feeling too rankled by that to grasp the thrust of the heavy metal overture, though I believe it was something by Morbid Angel, whose Erik Rutan produced some of the tracks on the new All Eternals Deck.

But, as the band took their places, I put all that behind me, seeing as Darnielle's music is about overcoming adversity (or, less optimistically, being crushed by it). Darnielle cheerfully apologized for the long absence from Toronto — in fact, after leading off with something new ("Liza Forever Minnelli"), he was a joyful presence on stage, countering the darkness in the songs with witty banter and a willingness to pause to tell the stories behind some of the songs. It's pleasing to observe that his clipped, nasal cadences while singing are balanced by a chipper demeanour between songs. He also must have figured his most intent fans would be up close, given a bit of a propensity to chat off mic with the front row between songs.

Although the new album got its due, there were also plenty dips into the band's back catalogue², including "Jeff Davis County Blues" and "Southwood Plantation Road" early on. Musically, The Mountain Goats is a pretty straightforward band, with quick songs and uncluttered arrangements that serve as a delivery system for Darnielle's lyrics. The live band applies a sonic consistency to material from different eras and managed to inject some energy into the songs from the new album (like like "Estate Sale Sign") that flirted with blandness in their recorded versions.

Darnielle chatted about his unusually-large microphone (a repurposed drum mic), and told the story of how Amy Grant inspired him to play without shoes. A quieter solo portion began with "Outer Scorpion Squadron" accompanied only by Semo's keys before Darnielle was left by himself on stage, strumming recent non-album track "You Were Cool" and back-to-back Sunset Tree singalongs "You or Your Memory" and "Up the Wolves".³

There were a few things that I would assume would count as rarities, like "Seeing Daylight" from the 1996 Beautiful Rat Sunset EP — you'd think that most people here wouldn't be familiar with something like that, but the audience was amazingly quiet and attentive. That and "Age of Kings" was part of an quiet-with-band burst, before tearing things up again, starting with "Palmcorder Yajna" and the jaunty "Prowl Great Cain".⁴ There were a couple more deep cuts⁵ before the main set ended with Darnielle relenting to play "No Children", which I think was the most shouted-for song throughout the night. Sometimes the darkest things can be the most cathartic, especially when Darnielle simply held the mic out over the crowd to collectively sing out the refrain for him: "I am drowning / There is no sign of land / You are coming down with me / Hand in unlovable hand / And I hope you die / I hope we both die."

At eighty minutes, that would have been a decent concert. But Darnielle raised the bar when he returned and announced, "I have the day off tomorrow, so I'm going to be straight with you. We're gonna do what the Grateful Dead used to do and just do a second set. [beat] This will be five or six songs instead of the whole set. The reason it's not a whole second set is that those guys were really outstanding musicians and I am just a caveman hitting my guitar with a fist... I think a six-song second set is the best I can do." With that, the band launched into a kick-ass rendition of "Going to Georgia"⁶ from 1995's first full-length Zopilote Machine. It seemed obvious that the band was reaching beyond their standard tour repertoire, as before "Song for Dennis Brown", Darnielle commented, "Wish Yuval luck, he's never heard this song." And similarly, during "Dance Music", Darnielle was twisted with his guitar toward Semo so the keyboard player could see the changes.

There was still time left for stories, including a self-lacerating tale about an ill-considered youthful decision to break up with a girlfriend via letter to introduce "Broom People". And then with a fond good night came the affirming strains of "This Year" ("I am going to make it through this year / if it kills me").

Somewhat to my surprise, the mega-encore was not the end, with the older trio returning for a cover of Nothing Painted Blue's "Houseguest", the band rocking it out as Darnielle's microphone became intermittently unplugged as he fell to his knees, blasting the lyrics to the front row. The whole show wrapped up after twenty-five songs and just shy of two hours, almost enough to make up for the venue.

I'd originally posted a song from this set here, but now I've added a few more here — along with a link to the Live Music Archive, where you can stream or download the entire concert.

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¹ At one point later in the show, a woman behind me shouted up to the stage, "I hate men, but I love you, John!"

² All Eternals Deck is the band's thirteenth album, although those were preceded by a number of early cassette-only releases, to say nothing of singles and EP's. The prolific Darnielle also has a number of side-projects as well, making for a pretty vast body of work.

³ This night would prove a treat for fans of the 2005 album, which was dipped into quite frequently throughout the night, with "Dinu Lipatti's Bones" being surveyed, plus "Song for Dennis Brown" and "Dance Music" in the encore, asfter Darnielle admitted, "we have two songs left and they are also from The Sunset Tree, because that is how I'm feeling."

⁴ "This is a song about a guy who betrayed a guy! Later he felt bad because the guy got held in prison and tortured. That pretty much is what this song is about."

⁵ Including the spare "Snow Crush Killing Song" (from Sweden) and the particularly lovely "Elijah" from The Coroner's Gambit, one of the albums that, to be honest, I never even knew existed before searching for the song's origin.

⁶ Previously an ongoing concern for Darnielle, he has penned nearly two dozen "Going to..." songs.