Opinionist: The Mountain Goats @ The Knitting Factory

A few times a week, Gothamist publishes music reviews by our contributor Jeff Baum. The opinions below belong entirely to the author.

John Darnielle last night said that he'll never come through New York City without playing the Knitting Factory. "Even if we were playing Madison Square Garden (not that we will be anytime soon), we'd still make a point to stop by here too." This was my first time seeing him play. After hearing his glowing praise for the heralded venue, I was expecting something special, and while for all I know this may have been much like any other Mountain Goats set, it was nothing short of an extraordinary night of music.

It was Halloween. John came on stage wearing a black friar's robe, complete with a gigantic gold cross around his neck. His bass player was dressed as a dark demon in a black shroud. He immediately broke into the energetic 'Going to Georgia', which he later joked was a great song to lead off with because he doesn't have to listen to people yelling out requests for it all night. After a captivating set by The Prayers and Tears of Arthur Digby Sellers and an excellent, albeit sleep inducing hour of Grizzly Bear, The Mountain Goats immediately provided the spark needed to kick in a much desired second wind.

I love this band and all, but I cannot consider myself anything but a passing fan compared to the other people in attendance. Darnielle has written literally hundreds of songs, and it seemed like the majority of the audience knew every word of every song he played. Many dressed up in costumes representing their favorite tune, hoping John would take notice and play it for them. It was quite endearing, if not bordering a bit on obsession. I’ll take a fanatic audience over an indifferent one any day of the week.

Near the end of the long set, he called Prayers & Tears back out to accompany them on a few songs. This was the last night of a month-long tour they had all been on together, and shared the stage to play a few more songs. After a couple of encores, they all said farewell, with John promising a new album in the spring and another tour next fall. I left last night a much bigger Mountain Goats fan than I was when I arrived and I severely regret blowing off their show at Bowery on Saturday. I cannot wait until their next appearance in New York. I expect it to be back at the Knitting Factory once again.

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By Jeff Baum in Arts & Entertainment, Miscellaneous on November 1, 2005 3:26 PM

Comments [rss]

mk

were you guys all at the same concert i was??? the mountain goats were aMAZing i have never seen anythign so amazing and there is no way i'm missing it when JD comes back to the knitting factory next year. the crowd was so hyped on them too. when JD came on you would have thought the audience had been asleep before and just woke up. the prayers and tears were okay, better than i thought they would be, but when grizzly bear finally said they only had two songs left i was like TWO? how about ONE! completely incoherent droning into echoing mics.

d

uhm what exactly did i miss? i saw the whole show and grizzly bear was fucking awful. i would pay to not see that band. i dont get it. i listen to tons of music and dudes who just sort of moan while their drunk drummer pounds away incoherently and every once in a while some guy hits a xylophone doesnt sound good. sorry. i dont care what hipster says they are amazin, i saw them live and they were trash.

reading

the prayers and tears were really tepid. i'm surprised you found the predictable to be so charming. i sat out the second half of the MG 's overblown set in the bar room and from what I heard general consensus was otherwise brian. maybe you were just hanging with the wrong crowd. whereas prayers and tears I agree had some nice melodies, most of the time it seemed they were stuck in neutral..\

Brian

I wish you'd been there too. Because the crowd was far more into Prayers and Tears and especially the Mountain Goats than they were the Griz -- these comments are making it look otherwise. I'm not sure what an upcoming potential Pitchfork review about Grizzly Bear has to do with anything. Who cares if they get critical acclaim? Maybe their next album will be great, maybe it won't. But I thought they kind of sucked last night, and, based on what I saw, it seemed like most of the crowd felt the same.

fat asian baby

whatever the verdict, i wish i'd been there.

MaxPower

What happened to the royal we? You know, the editorial... I don't know if you managed to talk them into letting you speak singularly, but if you did, we want to say that we deeply appreciate it.

r.

good to see jeff! i was wondering if you were at the same show I was. however, "dreamy and downtempo" is a much nicer way to put it than "sleep inducing"

anyone going to see the shout out louds this week at bowery?

i am thinking i might

Jeff

Yikes! I updated to clarify. I thought Grizzly Bear was very good. It was just dreamy and downtempo. I hardly meant that as an insult.

greg

jeff's gonna feel like an ass next time grizzly bear cuts a full-length and pitchfork gives it a 9.6 and everyone on gothamist simultaneously starts creaming themselves and you can't buy a fucking ticket to the show because of it.

Cameron

I agree with R., Grizzly's psych-rock pretty much killed the Mountain Goats. You just can't hate on a band with that kind of rapport after like, a year and a half or writing music. I just wish Darnielle would write a really, really long novel and kind of get it all out.

r.

so weird. i don't get it, I thought the opening band was ok, pretty generic, but mountain goats were just tedious. at least grizzly played a variety of songs that didn't all sound the same