Chillin’ in fanboy heaven

The Mountain Goats are probably my favourite musical artist. From the early years of just John Darnielle with a guitar and a tape recorder right through to the current three piece iteration, I am an embarrassingly large fanboy. So, a few months back, when they announced they were playing at the Union Chapel, one of my favourite venues, I snapped up tickets the moment they came on sale. So last Tuesday I descended upon Islington with a heavy sense of excitement. After an excellent opening set by singer-songwriter Alessi’s Ark, I was expecting the show to end all shows.

For this show they had been reduced to just John Darnielle and bassist Peter Hughes. This limited the set somewhat, since several tracks (including most of the choice cuts from the new album) don’t really work without drums, as John himself admitted to one particularly adamant heckler. It did mean we were treated to a few more old numbers though, which is always a good thing. Considering the total repertoire numbers around 600 songs, I was overjoyed when I realised that an intro describing at length the role of the running back in an American football game meant that they were about to play my favourite Mountain Goats track: Fall of the Star High School Running Back. An incredibly rare performance of early cassette-only EP track Going to Monaco (I did say I was a huge fanboy…) was also pretty spectacular. There were also stunning performances of Up the Wolves, Woke Up New and See America Right. I was also blown away by some tracks I’m not obsessed with. Both Maybe Sprout Wings and Wild Sage were far more beautiful in the live setting whilst new album track The Diaz Brothers finally clicked for me. There was also a firm reminder that John is yet to put out the best song he’s written in a few years in his ode to a bullied kid at school, You Were Cool.

Sadly, this wasn’t the show to end all shows. Peter Hughes’ bass guitar refused to make sound during the first track, which proved distracting to John as well as the audience. It did lead to an impromptu solo performance of Jenny though, so I suppose I can’t be too annoyed about it. What I maintain my right to be annoyed about is the piano portion of the show. I don’t know whether it’s because John isn’t as good at writing for piano, or as good at playing piano, or if I just don’t like the three songs he played on piano (it’s definitely the last one) but the complete lack of energy during these songs really killed off the momentum for me. The fact that I felt bored at any point of a Mountain Goats show would be a shock to most of my closest friends, but that’s how it was. I left the show feeling a bit disappointed, but looking back on the setlist, I realise that I absolutely loved every single second that John was holding a guitar. It was just this tepid rendition of a few songs off the extremely boring The Life of the World to Come that didn’t hit the spot with me.

All in all, it’s obvious that I’m never going to enjoy the perfect Mountain Goats gig unless they let me pick the setlist. In terms of “big hits” we got Dance Music but there was no This Year or No Children, which was a bit of a shame. Of course, once you’ve written 600 songs, you’re always going to have to cut some of them, so it’s a bit stupid of me to complain about tracks that weren’t played. The setlist that was played was great, and the performance was top of the range. I suppose when you love something this much, it’s hard not to be upset with the smallest flaw.