The Mountain Goats @ Fowler'sLive, Adelaide (16/04/10)

Wed 21st Apr, 2010 in Gig Reviews

It’s not a Mountain Goats live review unless it mentions the frequency with which this highly respected outfit (maybe better described as John Darnielle & Co.) visit our distant shores. They’re now a Fowler’s staple, perhaps mainly due to the fact that they seem to be one of the only bands to understand the limitations of Fowler’s auditory set up and play within these sometimes claustrophobic boundaries. Even with his now expected three-piece band (includeing the sartorial duo of long time collaborator Peter Hughes on bass and John Wurster on drums), the sound never reaches anything close to a roar, instead motoring along with the occasional peak and rare troughs, powered by what are now three highly competent musicians. On this occasion they showed greater cohesion, with a significant increase in the level to which Darnielle feels and by extension controls the band. The new religious alluding, if not explicitly religious release The Life of The World To Come is indicative of this as it utilises precision as an emotional force. This is unlike Heretic Pride, the album that was last toured here, which rocked harder and had a tendency to embrace the shambolic within the band context, something which Darnielle perfected oh, so well as a soloist. He even made some short remarks during the night about working with the band and needing to do ‘something different’. The gig may have lacked the emotional potency of previous outings. I can only guess what it was like to see Darnielle wailing in his lonely, lo-fi pre-recording studio days, but this time around it was a professional rock show, Darnielle maintained his manic energy translating it perfectly into his patented, hugely charismatic stage presence and replaced true grit with what was the best set-list he’s played in Adelaide.

Crayon Field opened the night as I was walking in, dishing out an aural meal of their naive harmony inflected twee-pop. Usually it’s a pleasing sound they have; one that drifts by you, not asking much yet delivering the odd mini-pop gem. Whilst I had no specific point on which to pick apart their nominal sound, they lacked the weight required to adequately support the importance and quality of Darnielle’s lyrics and passion. It isn’t so much of a criticism, as a compliment to the natural energy and overriding quality of the Mountain Goats’ work. Crayon Fields are a band worth knowing, perhaps loving, but a band far too bashful and self-effacing to be the introduction to Goats anti-cloy sentiment.

After seeing the magic of Darnielle live on numerous occasions I approached this gig with no fear of disappointment. His consistency is legendary and now that he’s had some time to warm up to a highly proficient band, his stage show is improving every time he comes around. Professional, well-performed and crowd pleasing are the key tenants of the New Mountain Goats sound, but there are still ragged edges, bustling energy and trademark Darnielle comedy (off-the-cuff and rehearsed). For a band without any truly notable cross-Atlantic hits, bar possibly This Year which was played, as it must always be near the end of the night (and encouraged a significant amount of arms to creep around the necks of close friends), there are different kinds of ‘favourites’ to play. And they covered off on material differing enough to please all different types of Goats fans. For those that have enjoyed the personalised, semi-allegorical tales from their latest work, there was Samuel 15:23, Matthew 25:21 and Genesis 30:3. These songs are smoother, less raucous then what they brought last time in their bag of Heretic Pride which was surprisingly less represented than expected. Those young men and women that joined up to the Mountain Goats sound with Darnielle’s move to high fidelity recording equipment were well served with the oft played Letter From Belgium from Tallahasee or the lyrically dense Palmcorded Yajna from We Shall All Be Healed. Those that fell in love with The Sunset Tree (of which there were many) got the regular high dose of genius with the beautiful Love, Love, Love, the ethereal love paean Dina Lupati’s Bones and the celebratory in the face of adversity Dance Music. There was a decent range of work, perhaps slightly lacking some of the lo-fi genius we’re accustomed too from the vast body of work recorded pre All Hail West Texas. This didn’t matter much, as there was a sense of refreshed passion in the songs he chose to play and as always, he was willing to take a request anywhere along the way.

The encore was a boon though for those that had seen the Goats before. It had the mix of true fan classics and a couple of those rarely played songs, that are still fan classics. Beginning with Darnielle’s favourite cover of all time, Houseguest (no joke, he plays it every time, given to prancing about as rock star while spitting its acerbic and satirical lyrics) and quickly segued into the legendary No Children whose subtle crescendo had the crowd, as it always does, in rapture. And the crowd screamed again and got a second encore. By this stage it had been a shortish gig going for about an hour and twenty minutes, but thankfully still had a one-two-three punch left in it. Starting with the almost floating Wild Sage from the ever-so-quiet Get Lonely he paused for a while before introducing Broom People, announcing that it was rarely played and that it would be a privilege to do so and that Adelaide deserved it. It was slowed down, measured even better than on record, with the trademark teetering passion Darnielle has always had on stage, even if it was slightly diminished on this occasion. And then the perfect finish, possibly the shortest, greatest epic a 90’s songwriter has written, the blood rush, almost homicidal\suicidal Going To Georgia. Every Mountain Goats fan hails to this song as a pinnacle of song writing talent and while Darnielle is more than willing to play it most times, to have it finish a concert is awe-inspiring and highlighted the semi-fractured career arc that was this particular set of songs.

Once a year the Mountain Goats will come to our shores and blow us away. Most of the time it’s the same people turning up on each occasion, with a few newbies drawn in each tour. There is nary a band who’s following is as loyal and committed, almost pained at every possibility to see Darnielle that is missed. In fact I’d go as far to say that there is no band off the top of my head that is so value for money, so talented and so worth seeing live, but also that come so often. They may get more professional and more polished, adapting to the band dream Darnielle is following, but Darnielle can’t lose his style, his manic energy and the songs will never un-write themselves. And thank god for that.