Mountain Goatlike Exam Hangover
Saw The Mountain Goats for the second time last night. And by “The Mountain Goats”, I mean John Darnielle and his guitar. Amusingly, though, he did walk out on stage alone and say, “Hi, we’re The Mountain Goats.” It was a great show. He played a lot of really old songs, many I didn’t know. So of course today, I’m going to have to look into his back catalog much more carefully! There were some real gems. I think he was kicking himself for some prior heavy-dabbling in alternate tunings. Without a guitar tech at the ready, it meant he had to recall and implement these on the spot. And some were ones he hadn’t done in a while, so recalling just how they went wasn’t exactly effortless.
The crowd didn’t mind, though. They love their John. Although, if you ask me, I’d say they were pretty darn demanding, yelling and screaming requests after every song. I guess that’s what you get with such a large repertoire, and a ton of renegade MP3’s of live performances all over the internets. He responded to one guy’s constant LOUD requests for some obscure number by explaining that he barely remembered the song at all. Some guy on some radio station played it for him, it sounded vaguely familiar… He acknowledged that it was, in fact, one of his children, but knew little more about it than that. This response did not dissuade his audience though. The yells continued all the way through to the end.
What a charismatic and genuine performer. His lyrics are honest and specific and always manage to evoke something so salient for me (and clearly the rest of his fans). He uses his voice in the most unique way to express what he’s saying. He’s a storyteller. If you have the chance, don’t you dare miss him.
There’s a relatively popular song of his that I woke up singing to myself this morning. It seems fitting, given that this is the morning after my big exam. I do feel that I “woke up new” today. It’s about a breakup, but you’ll see how it might (and in fact does) fit my current state of mind:
On the morning when I woke up without you for the first time
I felt free and I felt lonely and I felt scared
And I began to talk to myself almost immediately
Not being used to being the only person there
Wanna hear what I’m talking about? Listen to some tunes stream on Hype Machine. (Hope that works.)
