October 1 2006: The Mountain Goats, Christine Fellows – Bowery Ballroom, New York NY

Pretty good day all around. New Friend Whitney came down for the day and that was fun, and while we were walking around in the park we ran into Christine! So not wishing to not say hello twice in two days, I walked right up and said, “Hi Christine! I like your songs!” To which she acted as if she thought I was crazy.

But it was a beautiful day, and really not a bad show to end the tour on. But oh the Mountain Goats crowds eat me up inside. For instance, the following is a list of the first eight songs that were played, in order: “Maybe Sprout Wings,” “Jeff Davis County Blues,” “Jenny,” “Color in Your Cheeks,” “Love, Love, Love,” “Game Shows Touch Our Lives,” “Shadow Song,” and “In the Hidden Places.” Look at that and ask yourself if you could really be asked to write a setlist with a better eight tunes to start off with. Because I don’t believe you could. And yet it’s only now, looking at the bare facts of what was played, that I realize this. Because the goddamn crowd was a huge fucking collective asshole, singing and yelling during just about the whole show. The only song they really shut up for was “Shadow Song,” and that was only because John said, “I wrote this after a friend hung himself,” and then went immediately into it. And it was great because everyone just stood there listening instead of yelling out older-than-sin requests and/or cracking wise to their buddy and/or singing along in my ear even after I gave the old nudge-and-finger-to-my-lips-and-evil-eye routine. Oh well.

It really was a good show though, it just could have been so much better had different people been there. And afterwards I got a big hug from Mr. Hughes and was able to apologize to Christine for scaring her in the park, and then took the long train back to Brooklyn happy. I need to figure out how to solve this love-for-Mountain-Goats-songs/loathing-of-Mountain-Goats-fans problem though.