By: Ryan Ruff Smith
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John Darnielle of Mountain Goats - Photo by Smith
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Before the show Thursday night, I sat at the Triple Rock bar with my friend Mary discussing the Mountain Goats. I was telling her that I thought John Darnielle was a very strong songwriter but that he did have his faults, such as an over-reliance on simile, when who should step up to the bar right next to her but Mr. Darnielle himself. I blushed like a houseguest caught bad-mouthing his host and tried to melt into my chair like an ice cube in an incubator. Darnielle quietly ordered some food from the bartender and sat down alone in a booth.
After I managed to get the taste of my own foot out of my mouth with the rest of my beer, I began to watch him from across the room. He looked nervous and self-conscious as he sat there by himself, glancing at a newspaper and eating his pre-show meal. Rather than going over to talk to him, I elected to leave him alone; after all, he may have just been getting into character for the show. He may have just been getting lonely.
And in fact, this may well have been the case - that evening he informed the audience that they were going to play through their entire new album, Get Lonely, start to finish. This was an interesting choice, considering that Darnielle was joined only by bassist Peter Hughes for the entirety of the set. Most of the Mountain Goats' material thrives on this stripped down line-up, but Get Lonely is something of a different animal. It is so mellow and understated that the subtle instrumental augmentations are what really make the album work for me. Darnielle’s bare bones compositions are fleshed out by one-finger piano lines, melodic electric guitar riffs and simple string arrangements, and these details really help the songs creep under your skin. Many of the new songs worked in their simpler arrangements, but some of them did not maintain enough inertia.
It seemed that Darnielle tried to make up what the Goats were lacking in instrumental texture with a more dynamic, emotional vocal performance, often letting go of his guitar mid-song to clutch at his hair dramatically. This was often compelling, but occasionally seemed a bit forced.
The crowd didn’t seem to be bothered by it, though – every eye and ear in the sold-out Triple Rock club remained attentively fixed on the stage throughout the entire show, even when Darnielle’s voice dwindled to a whisper. Their total attention was not surprising – Darnielle’s biggest strength just might be his stage presence. Gone was the nervous, shy man I had seen in the bar; he seemed totally comfortable on stage and bantered playfully with the audience between every song. This kept the show engaging, even as the Get Lonely material started to feel a little strained.
And in the end, they did not actually play through the entire album uninterrupted. Four songs into the set, they threw in an ad-libbed half-cover of “Barracuda” in response to a crack Darnielle had made earlier about Heart. Then, after “Moon over Goldsboro,” Darnielle told the audience that he had promised himself that if he screwed up one of the new songs he would stick an older tune in the middle of the set. He was true to his word, and the energetic spoken word rocker “See America Right” from their Tallahassee album provided a needed change of pace.
Though this was a seismic spike in the lifeline of the show, there were several smaller peaks. “Get Lonely” was entrancing in its commitment to being hushed, and even when Darnielle added a dramatic pathos to the chorus, the energy remained contained within the song and never spilled over its edge. “Woke up New” was another highlight, mixing the pain (and loneliness) present throughout the rest of the album with a sense of the mundane: “The first time I made coffee just for myself / I made too much of it / But I drank it all / Just ‘cause you hate it when I let things go to waste.” It is one of the relatively upbeat songs on the album, and the gentle melody helps the details speak for themselves – a perfect example of a writer showing, not telling.
The highlight of the show overall, though, had to be the first song they played after finishing the album set – the rousing sing-along “No Children.” The song, from Tallahassee, is so bitter that it is hilarious, but it also manages to retain surprising emotional weight – “I hope that our few remaining friends / Give up on trying to save us / I hope we come up with a failsafe plot / To piss off the dumb few that forgave us.” The whole crowd was thrilled to hear a song more typical of the Mountain Goats they knew. But though I hope that this sort of material always stays in their live sets, I am excited about the direction that the Mountain Goats are headed. If “No Children” is the ultimate kiss-off and the perfect encapsulation of dysfunction, the songs on Get Lonely could be seen as the inevitable coming down, the quiet morning after the fall-out. And if Darnielle figures out how to consistently capture the sound of that loneliness, in concert as well as in the studio, the Mountain Goats of the future could possess a staggering emotional range.
Location Info:
Triple Rock Social Club
Artist Info: The Mountain Goats
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