May 11 2007: The Mountain Goats - Sound Fix Cafe, Brooklyn NY

There was a moment, at the beginning of the second song of the night, while the sweat was just finishing saturating my eyebrows and beginning to drip into and sting my eyes, at that instant in which I realized that in very short order John would step toward the microphone and almost whisper, "When I ask you to look at me," aka the first line of "Snow Crush Killing Song," aka the song I maybe wanted to hear most in the world. At that moment I had no regrets about anything.

Cause I almost didn't go to the show. And maybe I shouldn't have. But I did. And fuck circumstances: I had a great time despite knowing I'd get only two hours of sleep that night, and I had a great time despite rear ending a guy on 95 in the Bronx heading down that afternoon. I repeat, fuck circumstances: the car still runs, I've got insurance, I didn't sleep through my alarm the next morning. And can a price be put on good times being had? Are a crunched up front end, a $500 deductible, being really really tired for a twelve-hour shift at the hospital in the morning and a new unfriendly noise emitting from the engine worth good times? I mean, Really Good Times? In italics and with every word capitalized? I'm not sure I could say no.

So the long and short of it: Whitney and I went to see the Mountain Goats. I believe it was show #32 for me, and it was her first time. Made it to Williamsburg around five and walked around a little bit and found this fantastic little bar with a garden and two-for-one drinks and no one there besides us and the bartender and the bartender's friends, and we spent a couple hours there. The show itself was at this other little bar, where we ordered more drinks and staked our spots at the front of the stage, which was no more than six inches raised from the floor. Come an hour later we were really glad we were there early due to the insane amount of people trying to squeeze into the room.

And there were lots of people, and it was way too hot to have so many people in that space, but everyone was really polite and no one was making an ass of themselves and, perhaps in no small part due to the fact that only two songs released on 4AD were played, there was a noticeable and much-appreciated lack of singing along.

John was playing solo and, amongst others, did "The Day the Aliens Came," "Going to Maine," six (six!) songs from "Sweden," and a great new tune called "Lovecraft in Brooklyn." And then Franklin came out and they did a set as the Extra Glenns, including, amongst others, "River Song," "Going to Marrakesh," "Badger Song" and "Carmen Cicero." People were drenched in sweat. Encores were demanded. I was happy.

And now, with the benefit of 20/20-type hindsight, I'm not entirely positive it was worth going. But neither am I entirely disappointed that I did. I needed something to remind me that I can have fun despite a crazy school schedule, and I hadn't seen the Mountain Goats since October, and who knows when or even if I'll ever see the Extra Glenns again, and it was fun to hang out with Whitney again, and so yeah. I'm not sorry I went. Not at all.