Concert review: The Mountain Goats at The Orange Peel
Last year was supposed to be one of the biggest yet for The Mountain Goats. In March, just before the COVID-19 lockdown hit, the band recorded two albums, which were eventually released as Getting Into Knives (2020) and Dark In Here (2021). At the same time, the group was gearing up for its spring 2020 tour. This 15-concert run was set to launch with an April 26 performance at The Orange Peel, but as the Coronavirus ravaged the world, that tour — like many of our big, big plans — were put on hold. Along with the rest of the country, the band holed up at home.
This past Friday, The Mountain Goats finally emerged at the Peel, kicking off their “Cave Angel Ascendency Tour” with their first live performance in 16 months. The quintet was bursting at the seams with energy and gratitude at this thrice-rescheduled show, performing more than half a dozen new songs that had previously never been heard live.
With three albums of new material released since their last show, front man John Darnielle constructed a 21-song set list showcasing his latest lyrical explorations, as well as cathartic fan favorites. Darnielle is known equally for his sharp storytelling and his polarizing nasal voice, and while not for everyone, the devoted Goats fans at the sold out venue had definitively come to shout along to his emotionally resonant and hyper-literate lyrics.
The Mountain Goats took stage to “We Belong Together” by Rickie Lee Jones, greeted by cheers from a nearly all masked crowd, and there was certainly a sense of togetherness as the room cautiously embraced the chance to assemble indoors for live music. Having trimmed his unkempt lockdown hair, but still sporting the bulk of his pandemic goatee, Darnielle complimented the N95-donning crowd on their practicality and good looks. “I have a bit of a mask fetish,” he joked. Days before this show, the former nurse and student of infectious diseases posted an emotional YouTube video asking fans to be vaccinated and mask up. “It’s not the worst thing in the world. In fact, it’s the best thing in the world, to take care of each other,” he said. Asheville’s Mountain Goats fans clearly heeded the call.
From there, the band jumped into the live debut of “Aulon Raid” from 2020’s Songs For Pierre Chauvin. This lockdown album was recorded solo by Darnielle in March 2020 on his old Panasonic RX-FT500 boombox, the delightfully lo-fi way the early Mountain Goats records were captured. Pierre Chauvin was released just a few weeks into the lockdown, partially to offset the cost of the canceled spring 2020 tour. Despite never hearing it in concert, the crowd sang along to the boisterous lyrics about a pre-antiquity battle: “Me and my crew / We will deal with you / Me and my Pagan crew.” The opener set a tone for the rest of the night that the band and the crowd were in this thing together.
The set continued with debuts of “The Destruction of the Kola Superdeep Borehole Tower” (from Dark In Here) and “As Many Candles As Possible” and “Tidal Wave” (from Getting Into Knives). It’s hard to name many bands as prolific as The Mountain Goats, and I’m sure Darnielle had a hard time choosing which of the 30+ new songs to share at this first live show. Ultimately, tales of the Soviet Union’s attempt to drill into the Earth’s crust and a pack of stray dogs catching you in an alley entered the pole position.
Playing such a large share of brand new music, however, came with a few hiccups. After a false start on “As Many Candles,” Darnielle admitted that they “haven’t played this one in front of people before” to the laughs of the adoring crowd, who knew how special that moment was.
Following such other favorites as “You or Your Memory,” “Sax Rohmer #1,” and “Never Quite Free,” the rest of the band departed, leaving Darnielle with just his acoustic guitar for a rendition of “Going to Alaska” — the first ever Mountain Goats song, from the 1990 debut tape Taboo VI: The Homecoming. He then emotionally thanked the audience for the “profound honor” of allowing him to play for them, recounted how much the fans held him up during the past year, and debuted an as-yet-unreleased track about a series of friends he’d lost touch with over the years. (Based on the chorus, it will probably be known as “Stack Them Up.”)
His bandmates returned to stage for the night’s second half with debuts of “Lizard Suit” and “Getting Into Knives.” Darnielle revealed that the latter song, a revenge fantasy about someone collecting weapons, was “kind of my favorite.”
The set also included a string of popular works in “Broom People,” “The Diaz Brothers,” “Whole Wide World” and “Amy AKA Spent Gladiator 1,” concluding with a rocking performance of “Heel Turn 2,” the tale of a professional wrestler turning from a babyface into a bad guy — a hard-hitting song where the ensemble fully showed off its musicianship. Also performing were longtime band members Peter Hughes (bass), Jon Wurster (drums), and multi-instrumentalist Matt Douglas. Joining the band for this tour was newest member Erin McKeown, who pumped up some of the group’s famously spare songs with her electric guitar.
For the encore, The Mountain Goats re-emerged wearing black shirts labeling each band member by their instrument (“DRUMS”, “BASS GUITAR”, “ELECTRIC GUITAR”, “SAXOPHONE,” and “VOCALS”), and launched into an audience-pleasing, four-song set of “Up the Wolves,” “No Children,” “This Year” and “Spent Gladiator 2.”
When it was time for the penultimate song, John emotionally answered the crowd’s cheers with, “You all know what I’m going to play next.” Indeed, “This Year” hit the room like a lightning bolt, with the entirety of the audience jumping to the point that it felt like the floor might collapse. During 2020’s lockdown, the tune became an anthem for many who were experiencing the hardest 12 months of their lives. The chorus “I am gonna make it through this year / If it kills me” took on new meaning, as the country dealt with sickness and death, lockdowns, social isolation, mask mandates, unemployment, supply shortages, and everything else wrought by COVID-19.
Yes, The Mountain Goats — and the audience ‚ made it through that year. But despite the still-raging pandemic, enjoying this night of music together was proof that we are all tantalizingly close to emerging like cave angels on the other side.
(Photos by Pete Berg)
