March 15 2008: The Mountain Goats, the Moaners - Middle East Downstairs, Cambridge MA

This was, like I was telling Caitlin as we were eating falafel for dinner, definitely the first time this little round of Mountain Goats that I felt actively excited for the show. So I followed that falafel and excitement up with quite a few Harpoons and enjoyed the hell out of the show. We were able to show up relatively late in the evening (an hour after doors, but still an hour until the Moaners started) and still get ourselves a nice spot with a stair to sit on while we waited and upon which to drink beer, and Peter found us as we were walking in and I was happy to be able to introduce him and Caitlin.

The Moaners, whose full set I finally caught, were great. Caitlin thought so too.

And the Mountain Goats started out the set with "Michael Myers Resplendent" and "Heretic Pride," just like they did in Northampton, but in Northampton they seemed tired and not excited to be playing, and seemed the opposite tonight. Even "Autoclave," which is definitely not my favorite song, sounded great. And the sound at the Middle East was bar none better than at any Mountain Goats show I've been to in the last year. Even that fucking slut who insisted on singing along couldn't ruin things. True story: I ask her if she wouldn't mind to please not sing quite so loudly, asking totally politely, totally thinking to myself, "ok Sohriakoff, don't come on too strong here cause this bitch is liable to insist on screaming in your ear if you sound too much like her dad, whom she most likely lives with cause she's clearly 17." And she looks at me like I'm some creep who's just felt her up on the subway or something, and informs me that she would very much indeed mind, and then leans over to her boyfriend to relate what has just happened. And then the boyfriend, in a tone nowhere near as polite as mine had been, feels the need to note that there is a whole room full of places to stand if I've got a problem with his slut of a girlfriend expressing her beautiful self. Caitlin, referring to this girl after the show, utilized a slang term for vagina that I'm not sure I'd ever heard her use in anger before - and not just once, but at least ten times. She didn't even stop singing after John prefaced "Love, Love, Love" by saying, "Not to tell anybody what to do, but this is another one of those quiet songs. Just so you know, if you paid to get in, that this song is quiet. That's really all I can tell you." But anyway - even that bitch couldn't ruin things. Plus she didn't know the old songs. Slut.

"Wild Sage" was fabulous, the best it's been all tour, and it led into "Sax Rohmer," which I hadn't seen live yet. Which led into the acoustic set, which was started with "Have to Explode," another song I'd never seen before. And "Jeff Davis County Blues" happened again. Man do I love that song.

And the set finished up with the following tunes: "In the Craters on the Moon," "Love, Love, Love," "Sept 15 1983," "Lion's Teeth," "Lovecraft in Brooklyn." It was fantastic. "Craters" and "Sept 15" were the best of the tour, maybe ever. "Lion's Teeth" was fucking ON, and "Lovecraft in Brooklyn" was maybe even as good as that time last year I saw it in St. Louis. Maybe even better. It was fucking nuts.

"Going to Georgia" opened the first encore, full band, and sounded good. I guess I prefer it solo acoustic, but it was fun to hear it with the band. And after "This Year" finished up and the monitor guy started to take microphones down and the lights and house music went up, the people refused to stop clapping and after a few minutes the band came back to do "The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton." Good fucking times.