Eeeeek!

Last night was the night. The Mountain Goats, John Vanderslice, and the Tallest Man on Earth came to town and said their piece. It was a great time.

The Tallest Man on Earth opened and I was immediately struck by the irrelevant fact of his relative shortness. False advertising? I think so.

Nevertheless, he put on a great show reaffirming my love for "Shallow Grave" rather handily. Perhaps the best word to describe the way he performed was charming. The way he played, it seemed that he was a guy that was used to playing in his bedroom that had accidentally wandered on to a stage, found an audience, and decided to keep on playing. When he wasn't singing, he was constantly nonchalantly walking around the stage- a practice that was nothing if not endearing. Even though he didn't really speak beyond saying "thank you" at the end of a few songs, he was completely involved with the audience. I like that. I would imagine that most guys who accidentally wander onto a stage and start performing would tend to ignore the audience and look at the floor. A top notch performance from a seemingly top notch dude with some top notch songs. Top notch. Ton potch. Top notch.

As a side note my friends and I noted among other things that he had a great mustache and that he looked like a mix between James Franco and John Mayer. What this means is anybody's guess.

Next came John Vanderslice. While I have enjoyed his music in the past I have never been particularly grabbed by him, so to speak. I can safely say however that his performance won me over once and for all. The first sign that this was going to be the case was when he invited the audience that was previously seated to join him on the stage. He did not ask them to come towards the stage, but to get on the stage with him and sit in a circle around him campfire style. A request that the audience of course obliged with a great deal of tenacity. Endearing? Yes. (If you have been paying attention you may have noticed that I have already used that word to describe the performance of The Tallest Man on Earth, my money is on my using it to describe the Mountain Goats as well).

Immediately during the beginning of his first song I remembered how much I like his voice. There is something about it that simply appeals to me (do I find it endearing? I suppose I do) and it reminds me of something I can't quite put my finger on. The songs he played from his new album "Romainian Names" were very good shifting me from comfortable ambivalence about that album to "very excited."

Also, If The Tallest Man on Earth was engaged with the audience, Vanderslice was superangaged (another word of my own invention). At various times he gave out water bottles to audience members as he had too many, chastised himself to for not having better gifts to give to the audience, and offered to divvy up the extra food in the tour van amongst any audience members willing to meet him in the parking lot after the show to make up for the lacking nature of his water bottle gifts.

The final performer of the evening was of course the Mountain Goats. While I thoroughly enjoyed the first two artists, I will admit that I was primarily there for tMG. I think that is fair since as I have mentioned, the music of this band is the primary focus of my obsessive nature. When John Darnielle walked on to the stage I was reminded how simultaneously cool and goofy he is, and when he started playing I was reminded (as if I needed anything of the sort) how much I love his songs.

As an added bonus he played one song that he had never played live before ("Treetop Song") and another rarity ("Cutter" a special dedication to Bloomington I suppose) and was generally very entertaining. In fact, probably the highest non-musical point of the set was his extensive explanation of the story behind the newest release and how people who harvest organs on the moon are not allowed to have close relationships with other people (as they might divulge secrets) and are rather made to live alone in Colorado in very lush, if solitary, accommodations.

Also, exciting news, Darnielle made mention of the fact that he would be going back into the studio soon to record a new album. Of course when I hear more I will immediately write about it.

Almost last, but certainly not least, upon my perusal of the Mountain Goats forums I found someone who had recorded both of the John's sets and posted them to archive.org and I feel that I would be quite remiss if I did not post them here.
John Vanderslice
the Mountain Goats
Thanks to Craig on the forums for these great recordings.

Sadly I did not get any good pictures as my camera is MIA and my friend's camera does not react well to being politely asked not to flash. It is sort of testy that way. Hopefully the audio can help to create a bit of a story for you. If it helps, just imagine three men of varying heights wandering around a rather large stage in a rather large theater singing songs about the many degrees of love and hate. I think that about sums it up.