REVIEW: The Mountain Goats Deem Bearsville a Power Spot
05/16 @ Bearsville Theater, Woodstock
Photos by Nate Bogardus
“That song had clearly been the soundtrack to many challenging moments, and it was like saying them all aloud, together, with the artist himself, was the death rattle for all that darkness finally leaving the body.”
I asked to review The Mountain Goats for an unorthodox reason: they were the favorite band of my favorite author when I was 13. While I couldn’t connect with the music then, it still meant something to me that these songs and lyrics were important to someone that was important to me.
Years later, with a bit more cultural knowledge in my pocket, I’ve started to delve into their catalog and, to my teenage self’s satisfaction, found hundreds of songs that beg the listener to pay attention to each phrase and take tangents to broaden their own knowledge to better understand the figures and art that inspire the music. And as I saw at Bearsville on Saturday night, generations of fans have done the work to find their own meaning in the songs of John Darnielle.
Later in the night, as we left the sweaty venue and emerged into the cool sweetness of the Woodstock evening, a fellow patron remarked to his friends, “I’d like to liken [Darnielle] to Walt Whitman with a guitar. A poet, a lyricist, talking about another person’s plight.” It’s a fantastic comparison. With over 30 years of music to pull from, some of it autobiographical, some of it in response to literature, some of it through concept albums like their most recent Through This Fire Across From Peter Balkan, The Mountain Goats have explored much of the human experience.
Their 80-minute set wasn’t nearly enough to touch upon every era of the band, but they did grace us with songs from 10 different records, a new release, and a Grateful Dead cover. The show began with “Overture” from the aforementioned Through This Fire…, leading straight into “Armies of the Lord” from the same record.
While that segment set the scene, it felt like the show truly began with the third song, “Harlem Roulette.” off of their 2012 album Transcendental Youth. As I re-listen to the track now, I understand that this is a song you need to hear live to fully experience — there’s something mind-bending about standing in the midst of a room of strangers as they all sing, “The loneliest people in the whole wide world are the ones you’re never going to see again.” Though we would likely never see anyone in that room again, Darnielle sang loudly to the crowd as if to reassure them that they were not the song’s isolated protagonist (who is actually 1960s child star Frankie Lymon; Darnielle empathetically imagines what he must have felt before his tragic end). They would always be seen through by the band, even if it was just through the music coming out of their speakers.
All night, it felt like Darnielle played into the physicality of the space, delivering lines with his signature yell-sing, as if he needed to disrupt his own melody to ensure that we were hearing what he was trying to say. Utilizing this delivery, he let the music speak for itself, very briefly stopping for an interlude between tracks, though I enjoyed hearing his digressions about nursing school (do you know any other bands that have not just one, but two songs about bandages?). He made eye contact with audience members throughout the night, pointing and singing at them, establishing real connections that transcended the stage.
Though it’s a new one, “Charlie Sheen Reaches Out To The Feds” was a stand out for me, the methodical, driven vocals lending themselves to Darnielle’s theatrics. While he ran between guitar and keyboard all night, bandmate Matt Douglas had his own multi-instrumental section happening on the left side of the stage, hopping between guitar, keyboard, and saxophone. This variety between the two of them made each song feel fresh, and was especially re-energizing after Darnielle’s mid-show solo acoustic section.
It was this back half of the show that really captivated the audience, the shift beginning with “The Diaz Brothers,” another Transcendental Youth pick. Though quick, it was clearly a crowd favorite, everyone bouncing up and down as they sang about the off-screen fictional brothers from Scarface. The energy built from there, hitting its peak at the right time with the five-song encore.
Darnielle had jokingly referred to Bearsville as a “power spot,” creating an ad on the spot for his fake “New Age course,” but the meaning that there was genuine energy and healing in the room. Though I had anticipated the collective moment of catharsis to come during “This Year” or “No Children,” which were both played to my relief (I would have been majorly disappointed without at least one!), my rookie-fan bias was checked during “Amy AKA Spent Gladiator 1.”
Woefully unfamiliar with the track, I stood back and absorbed everyone else’s experience. I’ve had my fair share of cathartic moments at a show, screaming back the words that meant so much to me, but I’ve never taken a moment to fully watch it in others. As the whole room yelled the refrain “stay alive” back at the band, the release of pent up emotions and energy was palpable. That song had clearly been the soundtrack to many challenging moments, and it was like saying them all aloud, together, with the artist himself, was the death rattle for all that darkness finally leaving the body. Perhaps it is a power spot after all.
