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Sunday Happenings
Sports Redux: B's, Bergeron Get 2 More From Road
Gordon Willis, the Man Who Plays Peekaboo
Under the pale moon for so many years
I wondered who you are
How could a person like you bring me joy
Under the pale moon
where I see a lot of stars
John Darnielle paused in the midst of his Ace of Base cover and said to the Somerville Theatre, caps-lock, "WHERE I SEE A LOT OF STARS." It was less a cover than an annotated critical edition, the original text broken up with observations and footnotes and questions, and this last bit of emphasis was placed on the line that most resembled the lyrical approach that Darnielle employs as the (ironically pluralized) Mountain Goats. Rather than proclaiming his feelings directly, Darnielle takes meticulous notes of the atmospheric phenomena that surround them. At Wednesday evening's show, the moon was repeatedly described; Alaska's virtues were proclaimed; coffee pots were emptied; Catholic relics were neglected; we were warned of the unmitigated Herzogian brutality of seals.
So when Darnielle sang that he "felt so desperate in your arms," it seemed like a violation of some unwritten policy. He stepped away from the microphone and flung his satin whine into the darkness of orchestra left. (He didn't notice there was a even a balcony until much later. Bostonist hopes he found out that the Somerville has refrigerated Junior Mints, too.)
It is a testament to Darnielle's talent for conveying spite that Bostonist was briefly convinced that seals—round, fat, floppy-flippered seals—are wily, vicious creatures. ("The seal has a mind set on violence / and the seal is the sworn enemy of man.") Armed with spitting rage and an acoustic guitar, the nasal, solitary Mountain Goat held the house captive with a few recent scifi compositions (from Moon Colony Bloodbath, a not-yet-released EP about harvesting human organs on the moon) and more than a few ferocious, wonderful, crowd-pleasing rarities.
The latter were chosen with particular concern for the Mountain Goats' Boston-area audience, and a few were chosen on the spot by particular audience members&;mdash;"you, 5th row up, 4th in," "last row in the house, up against the wall," among others. One of the happy few requested "Going to Alaska," one of Darnielle's earliest meanderings into songwriting, an unlikely marvel constructed from the most primitive materials: a chord and a violent daydream.
I am going to Alaska, where the animals can kill you
but they do so in silence, as though if no one hears them
then it really won't matter
I am going to Alaska
They tell me that it's perfect for my purposes
"The Sign" was also selected in this fashion, and played with some reluctance and apologies. This, Darnielle said, was what he insisted that the radio linger on, in an era when others wanted to put on Pavement, or Sebadoh.
Now the tour van listens to a Macbook "turned to 10," explained John Vanderslice, opening act and lunar organ-harvesting collaborator. A graceful Mothra to Darnielle's skreeonking Godzilla, Vanderslice cooed love songs to a four-track tape recorder and to hurricane season. "Come to me now / You are warming weather / Come to me now / The kind that comes / with sandbags along the river."
This Bostonist thanks A.B.D. McHarvardpants for his company and for insights contributed to this post.
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