The Mountain Goats

Date: June 14th, 2011

Venue: The Varsity Theater

A local Minnesota band, Communist Daughter, picked up the show on short notice. I’d heard of them before, but never listened their music. The band is made up of 4 guys and 1 girl: a female vocalist, a male front man/guitarist, a keyboardist, a second guitarist, and a bassist. 

As soon as they started playing there was a clear connection between the front man and woman. He would jokingly dance and play guitar by her, and there was a lot of eye contact between the two. About four songs into the set he told us they’re recently engaged.

Their set list included Lady is an Arsinist, Soundtrack to the End (the name of their most recent album), Minnesota Girls, a new song he wrote while in Hazelden before becoming 6 months sober, a song for his dad who drove up for the show, and Northern Lights.

The set was a good length for an opener, 45 minutes. Although none of the songs stuck with me much, I did enjoy the comedic presence of the front man.

The switch over for this show was incredible! A mere 20 minutes. I’m not sure what everyone else is doing, but they should do it like those guys.

Que black metal and flashing strobe lights. Four men walk onto stage wearing suit coats.

After an intro like that you don’t expect to hear John Darnielle’s sweet voice opening with Liza Forever Minelli. Songs they played for us included a song about “two people picked to live through a divorce” (Southwood Plantation Road), a song about dealing with “what used to be communal property in your house” (Estate Sale Sign), and a song he wrote while stuck in Portland for 24 hours (Birth of Serpents). Someone told the band to take off their jackets and John responded with something along the lines of “first you take off your jacket, then it’s your pants, and you’re fucking pant-less on stage and everything’s terrible.” The next song they played for us was “like being pant-less on stage in a really broad metaphorical way” (Dinu Lipatti’s Bones).

Everyone but John and the keyboardist left the stage and they played Tyler Lampert’s Grave. John then played a couple songs solo, including a cover of The Chiffons’ One Fine Day and the emotionally charged Woke Up New, which he introduced by telling us that most people are really impressed when he tells them how large the King of Prussia mall in Pennsylvania is, but we “have that deal in Bloomington.” 

“At the risk of pandering” the band played Minnesota for us. John clarified that we “could check the bootlegs” and they’d been playing it on tour. He told us that once you play a song on tour a couple times you really start to get into, to dissect it.

Leading into Broom People John said “you’re all lutherans here,” which got quite the laugh out of the crowd. His catholicism has always been apparent in his music.

He ended the set with a crowd favorite, This Year. And opened the encore with his most played, and possibly most well known song, No Children.

This was my first Mountain Goats show, and I’m mostly familiar with their four most recent albums, beginning with my personal favorite, Sunset Tree. I came into it knowing that he would play songs I didn’t know. But I was pleasantly surprised with the number of songs he played off All Eternals Deck, which has really grown on me. He played songs that any old fan would be glad to hear, and any new fan would love to learn.