We made a last-second decision to make the 30 minute drive over to Lawrence last night to catch the Mountain Goats at the Jackpot. It had already been a long day, but with a few recent dayjob victories between my friend Tom and I, it seemed like the thing to do. This was our Vegas trip, baby.
We arrived at the venue around 11pm. The opening band had already played, and we ended up waiting about ten minutes for John Darnielle & company to take the stage. There was a sizeable crowd, full of college kids drinking expensive drinks and Pabst - the type of crowd that will continue to keep Lawrence as the focal point for larger touring bands coming through the area.
Admittedly, my Mountain Goats fandom doesn’t run as obsessively deep as others’. To me, Darnielle has always been part of the lo-fi triumvirate that also includes Bill Callahan and Stephen Meritt. While Callahan’s projects have garnered the most attention personally, Darnielle and Meritt both must be respected for lengthy careers of consistency. When a friend commented on how great a song was and asked which album it appeared on, the best I could do was shrug. It could be any Mountain Goats song, on any Mountain Goats album. The live setting doesn’t afford the “Was it recorded on a boombox or in a studio?” filter to even begin discerning the Mountain Goats’ 15+ years of output. The band played a new song about reggae singer Prince Far-I, as well as “Dance Music,” “This Year”, and of course a litany of others that far more hardcore fans than I would be able to identify. The band closed out their hour-long set with a two-song encore ending with, of course, “The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton,” much to the delight of the crowd.
Darnielle added dramatic emphasis to quite a few songs, and those that held a deeply personal place were given even more stage treatment. Between songs, he would often give a brief, amusing explanation of the previous or upcoming selection . . . or just talk about whatever odd thing was on his mind at the moment.
The Mountain Goats are a band that I’ve wanted to see for awhile, and I’m glad I took the opportunity to do so last night. John Darnielle is obviously one of the long-standing figureheads of truly independent music, and indeed ranks right up there with the likes of Robert Pollard, Bill Callahan, or Will Oldham when it comes to doing what he wants to do and doing it his own way.