Live Review and Photos: The Mountain Goats, June 21, 2011, Detroit Bar – Costa Mesa, CA

Philip Cosores·June 23, 2011

Having previously seen The Mountain Goats at a festival, the thought came to me on Tuesday night that I had really never seen a Mountain Goats show at all. Not that there is anything wrong with their festival sets, in fact, they are quite awesome, touching on their most accessible and upbeat material. But, it is also like an abridged version of what The Mountain Goats are all about. Comparing the setlist from their FYF Fest performance last year with Tuesday night’s set at Detroit Bar revealed only one overlapping song: the anthemic rocker “This Year.” Thus, as a pretty devoted fan of the band, I was ecstatic to hear their renditions of beloved favorites, rarities, covers, and new songs from their recently released (and quite good) All Eternals Deck, though I still found it surprising how the band assumed everyone in this small club would be willing to go for the same ride, without their best-known songs in the setlist. One could call it arrogance if they weren’t completely right. So instead, we will just call it confidence.

The thoughtfulness that The Mountain Goats put into their show extended to opener Midtown Dickens, who over the course of 40 minutes quickly rose from the ranks of bands-I-have-never-heard-of to bands-I-am-itching-to-find-material-by. From Durham, North Carolina, the three-piece incorporated a collection of instruments that you just don’t get to hear every day, including a saw, spoons, backwards harmonica, oboe, mandolin, and ukelele. And still, despite the current obsession with anything bluegrass or Americana, nothing about Midtown Dickens sounded like novelty; rather, it all came across like honest expression, which is quite an accomplishment when you are working so strictly within the confines of a genre.

The songs were all there; some foot-stomping and tense, others filled with harmonies and sadness. But, beyond being capable musicians, the band proved to be adept entertainers as well, amusing the crowd with numerous between-song anecdote and overcoming a late-set string-breaking that delayed the set for a few minutes and forced a couple songs to be cut from the set. Luckily, if they continue to win fans like they did on Tuesday night, it is only a matter of time before they can afford backup instruments.

As I mentioned before, there is a certain thoughtfulness that goes into a Mountain Goats set. Structurally, the evening was broken up into four parts, with two full-band sets split by a solo set from John Darnielle, and closed with an exuberant encore. For the first full-band set, a showcase of The Mountain Goats’ long career commenced with All Eternals Deck closer “Liza Forever Minnelli,” whose lyrical references to Los Angeles were not lost on the audience. But, even more apropos was the feverish rendition of “Home Again Garden Grove,” which John Darnielle introduced as having “no idea where to begin explaining what this song is about, but a lot of you are probably living it right now and I hope you get well soon.”

For Darnielle’s solo set, standouts were the unreleased track “You Were Cool,” about someone “who lives nearby,” and “Matthew 25:21,” which overflows in sadness with its lyrics of a cancer-death in Southern California. And while everything about The Mountain Goats as a full band works, seeing Darnielle work alone is pure pleasure, as he sings not just with his voice but with his eyes and connecting with the audience not just with what he says, but how he says it. As he would later indicate, “some songs aren’t true at all, and some songs are half-true,” but the emotion, and the sentiment behind his work is all true – the fact that there is conviction in his performance.

The latter part of the evening stuck primarily to All Eternals Deck, with “Damn These Vampires” and “Never Quite Free” opening up with their live representation, reaching soaring levels with their climactic conclusions. But, a couple of the biggest crowd-pleasers came with a pair of tracks from The Sunset Tree, “Broom People” and “This Year,” which both found everyone in the audience able to sway in familiarity, not leaving anyone on the outside looking in, leading into the triumphant encore of Jawbreaker’s “Boxcar,” (which The Mountain Goats absolutely destroy) and the sing-along “Furniture Store.” The conclusion of the set saw Darnielle demanding audience participation and getting it, going to the front of the stage and getting face to face with some of the crowd. It was a rock and roll moment from a band that can be rock and roll when they want to. Hell, if there is one thing that Tuesday night proved, it is that there is little that The Mountain Goats can’t do, and do well.