Mountain Goats, Whelan’s, Dublin, Ireland
Given the wet windy Dublin conditions, the aptly named The Weather Station kicked off the show. The Weather Station is Canadian singer songwriter Tamara Lindeman – for a support act she managed to hold the attention of a full capacity Whelan’s amazingly well. Amazing because - while this Joni Mitchell look and sound like had a pleasant enough voice - her folk by numbers melodies and “Shy Girl” shtick started to grate after a couple songs. I must have been a in a minority because the rest of the audience seemed genuinely captivated. But pretty blondes often have that impact. Midway through the set Tamara defended the appropriateness of her stage name for a solo folk act, stating that she use to create “soundscapes” – perhaps if this was incorporated I would have been more engaged.
The Mountain Goats’ entrance was preceded by an audio clip of a wrestling promo - an interview with the American Dream Dusty Rhodes in which the actions of Nature Boy Ric Flair are measured against the economic “hard times” inflicted on the working class during early 80s US recession. Hard to imagine any of the current stable of WWE Stars having Dusty’s social conscience (or physique) – but this was before 12 years of Regan/Bush, Fox News and the stigmatization of the working poor in America.
After the audience’s successful mental transportation into colourful world of professional wrestling the Mountain Goats emerged led by John Darnielle the group’s front man, songwriter and for years only member. Sporting a t-shirt with the words “Obscure Wrestling Reference” under his geography teacher blazer Darnielle sat down at the piano and immediately launched into Southwest Territory a tender standout track from the 2015 wresting concept album Beat the Champ. Arguably the strongest set of songs since 2005’s the Sunset Tree, Beat the Champ, uses wrestling characters and references to explore the same personal and universal themes covered in previous Mountain Goats work. However when viewed through the prism of pro wrestling – Darnielle’s stories and ideas have a higher level of intensity, a greater sense of justice, a deeper level of tragedy.
With the multi-instrumental talents of Matt Douglas added to the standard back line of Jon Wurster (Drums) and Peter Hughes (Bass) – the fuller sounds of later Mountain Goats records are superbly reproduced live. And it is the recent material that the band mainly sticks with during the first half of the show with Darnielle switching between acoustic guitar and electric piano. It is clear that he is enjoying himself as he becomes the characters in this stories and even laughs at punch lines before they are delivered.
In the mid-section of the gig the band exit stage to allow Darnielle to play old or less well know songs from his massive back catalogue. For fans who favour pre-4AD Mountain Goats when all songs were recorded on a Panasonic boom box this is a treat. Songwriters often say that their songs sound best when they have just been written. Alone with an acoustic guitar Darnielle is able to re-create that sense of intimateness and immediacy. The fact that he had to struggle to remember chords and lyrics adds to the feeling of being with an amazing artist just after inspiration hits, when they figuring out how to play the melody that has just entered their head.
In an effort to customize the show to an Irish crowd Darnielle plays a few lines of Madam George and there is even a full Thin Lizzy cover, predictably this is awful and the low point of the show.
But any act that can boost a three song encore that consists of like This Year, Up the Wolves and The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton – can be forgiven the odd dodgy cover.
And the fact that the Mountain Goats can perform such a great show with so much amazing material left out (e.g. Going to Georgia, Dance Music, Love Love Love) shows the strength in depth of Darnielle’s writing. At this stage he must surely rank as one of the best lyrists of the last 20 years.
Only cripe was that they didn’t play the Legend of Chavo Guerreo the best song off the new album.
