Live Review: The Mountain Goats, Oh Pep!

The first time The Mountain Goats came to Adelaide, John Darnielle played at The Grace Emily. He was largely unknown here, but it officially started his cult following in Adelaide. During more recent visits, he's reminisced about that gig, telling about how he stayed up on the balcony drinking afterwards. So when this tour included a gig at The Grace Emily, the announcement was met with great excitement.

The fact that it was moved to Edinburgh Castle Hotel was a shame, but it was still a far more intimate venue than anyone expected given The Mountain Goats' large and devoted following. (And the stage at The Grace Emily would have been pretty cramped with all four band members sharing it, anyway.) Instead, they were spaced out along the stage that hugged one corner of the room, making those at the front feel like they were surrounded by the band.

The audience was a sea of plaid and no one had any reservations about showing their excitement for this highly anticipated gig. That mythical show in 2002 at The Grace Emily was right around the time The Mountain Goats released Tallahassee and tonight's setlist contained a few songs from that album. It was definitely a show for longtime fans and the setlist varied significantly from the previous night's show at Fowlers to include rarities such as Going To Scotland and the unreleased You Were Cool.

And it wasn't just the songs that changed; Darnielle also made a point of giving us some fresh between-song banter. It's something Leonard Cohen didn't do, apparently, so we were treated to an impression of the great man and a cover of Memories (which Darnielle has previously recorded with The Extra Glenns).

The band, now swelled to a four-piece, filled out the sound considerably for new single Andrew Eldritch Is Moving Back To Leeds. This song is typical Darnielle, but the full band arrangement pushes it in a different musical direction to previous The Mountain Goats releases, making it sound almost twee and detracting from the immediacy of his lyrics. Solo, Darnielle's music is still as powerful as ever and, when the band took a break and left him alone on stage for a while, he proved it over and over again.

Darnielle talked about capos, explained his songwriting craft and generally confirmed what we all knew already: he's a nerd, he knows it and doesn't care. It's what allows him to express such painfully private sentiments and only makes him more endearing. There are few experiences in music more thrilling than hearing Darnielle's voice take off, almost trembling with emotion when he sings lines like, "I am a babbling brook," during Broom People. That song sounded alive, as thrilling as the first time this scribe heard it. And he included Up The Wolves for The Sunset Tree fans as well.

By the time the encore came around, the two threads of the evening came together for No Children, one of Darnielle's most moving songs from all the way back in the Tallahassee days. It's a beautiful song that expresses horrible sentiments, but it's hard not to sing along to and the crowd was even more swept up in This Year's celebratory sentiment.

We were lucky to experience The Mountain Goats in such an intimate venue and it was the kind of gig that would have created a legion of new fans had there been any space for them. Here's hoping that next time The Mountain Goats return they'll do a residency.