Lansdowne Street in Fenway was packed with an eclectic array of Bostonians this past Saturday. Red Sox fans were buying hot dogs from street carts and making their way to the stadium and Santana fans were lining up outside of MGM Music Hall. A man in a kilt played bagpipes. Outside of the House of Blues, a line stretched several blocks long waiting for entry to see The Mountain Goats.
“Thanks so much for coming out tonight!” Mountain Goats lead singer John Darnielle cried out happily to the crowd at one point in their set. “And it’s game day — you had a choice!”
“Is there a lot of overlap?” the person in front of me asked their friend, chuckling.
As might be expected from a band who sells their songs on cassette tapes at their merch table, The Mountain Goats have an indie/alternative brand which has managed to maintain a lo-fi, underground feel, even though they’ve been on the scene for nearly three decades and are slated to release their 22nd album in October.
The opener for their Aug. 5 performance was guitarist Ryley Walker (pictured above), who sat on a stool in the center of the stage and hunched over his acoustic guitar as he played, occasionally resting his chin on its body, and tapping his crocs along to his soulful instrumentation. Walker displayed a higher level of musicality than I’m used to seeing in mainstream performances, and many of his pieces included a large portion of solo guitar with complex finger work and subtlety which I couldn’t help but feel got somewhat lost in the loud and clattering hall filled with excited fans. Nevertheless, his voice carried clearly over the crowd, whose members reacted with cheers and whoops to all the more dramatic swells of his music. Some members of the audience leaned in closer to the stage so as to better hear him play, transfixed by his quiet, internalized energy.
By contrast, when the Mountain Goats finally took the stage, it was such a blast of energy and noise that I briefly wondered if I was at the right concert. Lead singer Darnielle took the stage, accompanied by Peter Hughes on bass, Matt Douglas on keyboard, guitar, and saxophone, and Jon Wurster on drums. They were accompanied at several points in their set by Hughes’s cousin, Kyle Leonard on saxophone, whom the audience was quick to rally behind.
“Kyle!!!” someone shouted after the first song, which made John Darnielle laugh.
“My favorite part of introducing someone’s name on stage is that you immediately let them know what it is. If I had thought of it I would have printed Kyle T‑shirts, and I could point out which ones of you would buy two!”
This theme continued throughout the night with the crowd chanting “Kyle!” whenever he would leave the stage and chants of “Kyle! Kyle! Kyle!” punctuating the night.
After several high-energy songs, including “New Zion” and “Cry for Judas,” the middle of the set list grew quieter, with Darnielle and Douglas harmonizing “Wear Black” on piano bathed in dark blue stage lighting. Darnielle then carried on with several other slower, more soulful songs under a single spotlight on his acoustic guitar, including “Snow Crush Killing Song.”
At one point in his solo, Darnielle stopped strumming abruptly and turned to the audience.
“I’m stuck on the second verse in my mind…. What’s the first line in “‘The Recognition Scene?’”
The audience started shouting lyrics.
“No, no, ‘getaway car’ is much later…” Darnielle mused. “Oh yeah, doorknob! That’s right!” he cried and began again: “We broke the doorknob off the door…”
After “Source Decay,” the band came back to the stage .(“What about Kyle?” someone shouted, and the chant began again.)
The second half of the set list brought the energy back to the room. “Clean Slate,” the single The Mountain Goats have released ahead of their upcoming album, Jenny from Thebes, was met with a huge cheer. Featuring their classic laid-back vocals laid on top of a catchy, rising drumbeat, “Clean Slate” breaks into an adrenaline-surging, sing-song flutter of an anthem whose simplicity and repetition stick in your ear. (Although, as some commentators have noted online, it does kind of sound like the Bluey theme song).
“That’’s a brand new song and half the people in the room know it!” Darnielle exclaimed, delighted, as the crowd sang along.
The evening rounded out with several fan favorites. “The Diaz Brothers” was followed by a huge cheer for “Foreign Object,” which got the crowd dancing and shouting along with the chorus, “I’m gonna stab you in the eye with a foreign object! Foreign object!”
“Cadaver Sniffing Dog” and “Up the Wolves” brought the energy in the room to a peak, after which The Mountain Goats bowed out and then returned for an encore with classics like “No Children” and “This Year.”
Maybe it’s the authenticity of their sound, or maybe it’s their impassioned, tongue-in-cheek lyrics — or it’s maybe because their refrains, with all their warmth and urgency, are also completely singable — but The Mountain Goats have clearly built a loyal fanbase who are just as invested in their music as they are in building each other up.
Next at House of Blues: Dalton and the Sheriffs, Aug. 16.
What’s the review crew? Click here and here.
