October 28 2005: The Mountain Goats, The Prayers and Tears of Arthur Digby Sellers – Fuel Rocket Club, Collis Center, Dartmouth College, Hanover NH
I’d never been to New Hampshire before and found that New Hampshire has got a few things going for it: snow on the ground, no sales tax, and greatest state motto ever: Live Free or Die. I don’t have a clue Oregon’s motto is, but I’m guessing it couldn’t get within ten feet of New Hampshire’s. Got a craigslist ride with a French-Canadian guy in a Mercedes to within five miles of the college, and then a ride into Hanover with an aging hippy type who gave me carrots, tomatoes and whole-grain bagels and then introduced me to his friends who live at the Dartmouth Episcopal Outreach House. These Episcopalians, being aligned with the Christian God an all and therefore feeling it necessary to buy their way into Paradise via Good Christian Charity offered me a sofa to sleep on that night and a place to stash my pack for the day. Oh, if only they had known that their offer would result in me passing out in their bathroom at 430am…
I napped the afternoon away and around 6pm went to where the show was to be held only to find no one there and a sign stating that doors would open at 9pm. Fortunately the college maintains a bar just a few feet away from the venue. They were playing Van Morrison on the jukebox and had reasonably priced drink – beer and wine only though, which was a bit of a disappointment because by this point in the tour my tolerance to alcohol had ballooned so much as to make it necessary to consume the hard shit. You will, however, be glad to hear that I did not let this deter me in any way and enjoyed six drinks despite the two-drink-maximum liquor license.
The show itself was advertised as “everything free,” meaning admission, PBR and candy bars. I took advantage of the first two. There was no stage, just the bands on the same ground as the audience, each faction facing and feeding off the other. The Prayers and Tears played fabulously and were heckled by the drunken undergrads perfectly. A surprisingly large number of audience members kept yelling for songs about public transit. Good times were flowing.
The Mountain Goats started out their set surprisingly mellow for the free-show-and-free-beer crowd, with four of their first five songs being “Source Decay,” “Tallahassee,” “Cotton,” and “Love, Love, Love.” “Baboon” was also thrown in for the sole instance of the tour proper, and I will go out on a limb and state that the Dartmouth performance of “See America Right” was the best of the tour. Great show all around, the highlight perhaps being the point at which the crowd collectively urged Peter to “Drink, motherfucker! Drink!” It was an absolute shock when they did not return to the stage for a second encore, as I have perhaps never heard an audience futilely scream for more as I heard Hanover scream that night. After the show some dude was just holding his head and muttering “Oh my god! Oh my fucking god!” over and over for at least five minutes.
Alternate highlight: When someone yelled for John to “play whatever you want!” and he responded, “You know, when people say ‘play whatever you want,’ the stuff I really want to play I don’t know how to play. You know, like ‘2112’ by Rush. That would be awesome.” At which point Alex goes right into it. Beautiful.
Many folks found their way to the afterparty at the house of the guy who had booked the show and where, perhaps appropriately, the alcohol consisted solely of a case of store brand vodka. And I consider myself to be pretty up on store brand vodka but this stuff was so cheap even I had never laid eyes on it before. I would relay its name in order to advise all but the truly desperate to shy away, but my memory by that point in the evening remains spotty at best. And, finally, here let me here salute Alex Lazara, who was still firing on all cylinders at 4am when I left the party and with no less than four good-looking college chicks fawning over his every move. That man knows how to get things done.
I napped the afternoon away and around 6pm went to where the show was to be held only to find no one there and a sign stating that doors would open at 9pm. Fortunately the college maintains a bar just a few feet away from the venue. They were playing Van Morrison on the jukebox and had reasonably priced drink – beer and wine only though, which was a bit of a disappointment because by this point in the tour my tolerance to alcohol had ballooned so much as to make it necessary to consume the hard shit. You will, however, be glad to hear that I did not let this deter me in any way and enjoyed six drinks despite the two-drink-maximum liquor license.
The show itself was advertised as “everything free,” meaning admission, PBR and candy bars. I took advantage of the first two. There was no stage, just the bands on the same ground as the audience, each faction facing and feeding off the other. The Prayers and Tears played fabulously and were heckled by the drunken undergrads perfectly. A surprisingly large number of audience members kept yelling for songs about public transit. Good times were flowing.
The Mountain Goats started out their set surprisingly mellow for the free-show-and-free-beer crowd, with four of their first five songs being “Source Decay,” “Tallahassee,” “Cotton,” and “Love, Love, Love.” “Baboon” was also thrown in for the sole instance of the tour proper, and I will go out on a limb and state that the Dartmouth performance of “See America Right” was the best of the tour. Great show all around, the highlight perhaps being the point at which the crowd collectively urged Peter to “Drink, motherfucker! Drink!” It was an absolute shock when they did not return to the stage for a second encore, as I have perhaps never heard an audience futilely scream for more as I heard Hanover scream that night. After the show some dude was just holding his head and muttering “Oh my god! Oh my fucking god!” over and over for at least five minutes.
Alternate highlight: When someone yelled for John to “play whatever you want!” and he responded, “You know, when people say ‘play whatever you want,’ the stuff I really want to play I don’t know how to play. You know, like ‘2112’ by Rush. That would be awesome.” At which point Alex goes right into it. Beautiful.
Many folks found their way to the afterparty at the house of the guy who had booked the show and where, perhaps appropriately, the alcohol consisted solely of a case of store brand vodka. And I consider myself to be pretty up on store brand vodka but this stuff was so cheap even I had never laid eyes on it before. I would relay its name in order to advise all but the truly desperate to shy away, but my memory by that point in the evening remains spotty at best. And, finally, here let me here salute Alex Lazara, who was still firing on all cylinders at 4am when I left the party and with no less than four good-looking college chicks fawning over his every move. That man knows how to get things done.
posted by Peter Sohriakoff | 12:56 PM
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