The Mountain Goats - Lee's Palace 09-19-2006

Who needs a band? What are drums good for? The Mountain Goats don’t need them. Armed with an electric acoustic lead vocalist John Darnielle teamed with bass Peter Pughes for a lo-fi version of musical storytelling on Sept 19th. On tour to promote their new record, Get Lonely, the duo rollicked through both a long, vibrant set punctuated by Darnielle’s unique brand of songs and stage banter.
While some people may take offense to Darnielle’s vocal quality (myself not among them), the blend of conversational story telling and varied song structure lead to a wildly entertaining show. The songs have a “back porch” sort of quality, an orality of storytelling, with asides and clichés that is at once impressive and enthralling. Always a smart songwriter, the lyrics wind together, creating clever pockets of recognition in the audience. Although I wasn’t that familiar with most of the songs, The Goats did an excellent job with their playlist, alternating the slower and faster songs, the ones more familiar with the new releases, and sprinkling humour all through the show.
John Darnielle worked the crowd like a good stand up comedian, launching jokes with perfect timing and delivery, all the while inviting the audience into a mutual partnership. Blasted with contestant requests for songs, he simply replied “No. I’m not a whore.” Then he jokingly apologized after the next song by explaining “I’d be pissed off too. If I went a nick Cave and the Bad Seeds Concert and all they played was The Boatman’s Call I’d be like ‘Fuck! I Hate The Boatman’s Call!’ Goddam piano ballads.” He then took the request later explaining that he forgot how exactly to bridge so he simply “hung the G and raised [his] voice.”
It was that type of honest humour that tied together the show, a fine understanding of showmanship that allowed the audience to have fun. Creating fun at a live show is often a lot harder than it sounds; the audience has an expectation of musicality and a set of favorite songs they want to hear (and hear played well). The Mountain Goats rose to those expectations drawing two encores. The first underlined the sardonic humour of the duo, closing with "No Children" and a song about being “the perfect houseguest” while reading journals and opening mail, providing the highlight of the show. For the last encore, they played their classic tune “The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton,” modifying the opening to a slower pace and the lyrics to include the popularization of The Killers and leading the crowd to chant “Hail Satan” loudly, only groaning and growing sad when the house lights came up and we all had to leave.

A+

Note: I really didn’t much care for the opening act, Christie Fellows: her voice was too was too unsteady and chipper. All her vocals sounded too sunny, even when the music was obviously darker. Also, it seems like she understood what goes into indie music and then tried to jam as much of it in as possible, including a giant weird percussion section and a cello. The songs were WAY too busy and definitely did not highlight the cello, one of the coolest and most atmospheric instruments, enough.