2023-10-05 August Hall
Isa Burke, John Darnielle, Matt Douglas, Peter Hughes, Jon Wurster
Notes
Notable for someone throwing their divorce papers on the stage (see banter).
Setlist
Recording (Taper: Tape & Bake)
Banter
- I've been waiting to play this song for you guys for awhile. (Guys on Every Corner)
- Thank you so much. It is emotional for me to be in San Francisco because there are two people in the room at present without whom the Mountain Goats would not exist at all. [cheering] One of them is Wendy who ran Aquarius, love you Wendy, and the other is Matt Nathanson, who ran the open mic night where I showed up one night at quarter to 12 as he was about to pack it in. I had just gotten off work, I got off work at 11:15 and I drove half an hour to Claremont, I was staying with my mom so I could go to college on the weekends, but there was an open mic there. I was writing songs, I thought they were kinda funny, so. So I remembered to go to the open mic night, and this guy with long hair was saying "if there's nobody else, I guess we'll shut down". So I said, well, I have a couple, and then I played like one whose chorus went 'let them kill me' [ed: The Water Song, which is generally not reassuring for people to hear you sing in the shower] and I probably played the Garden Song, the one about the guy who - and Matt came up and said, you have to come back next week. And without that, I would be your nurse today. So this is for you, Matt. (Fresh Tattoo)
- You know, fellas and Isa, one great thing about San Francisco is you know, they were ahead of the curve on this whole thing. You go to other clubs now and people'll be hitting wax pens out in the house. But in San Francisco, they bring a giant bomber and smoke weed in the audience. [drum kick] They're not vaping some kinda boutique thing that has a name like Gaia's Blessing or something. Nah. It's a big, fat, it's a fattie. [cheering and off mic chatter] This is an electric guitar and I am a middle aged man. Don't ask me any questions or you'll be here all night. I will tell you all about it, but I won't refer to it with feminine pronouns 'cause that's gross. My guitar don't work either...nothing happened. I mean, I could play the acoustic, but I gave a whole lead-in about the electric guitar and whatnot. [Guitar works again, yay] I feel you are owed one of these [plays a cool guitar riff that I should probably recognize but do not]. (The Mess Inside)
- On violin, electric guitar, Isa Burke! [raucous cheering] It's not gonna happen, but Jon started doing that and I was like, we should have a drum solo now. [enthused cheers] It's not gonna happen tonight, but I wanna plant the seed. Get the concept going.
Matt (?): It's like the solo break, but for the drummer.
JD: Precisely. (Before I Got There)
- Fellas, what are we gonna play? [off mic] I play this one on the piano. [clavinet chord] NO. [laughter] I like, I really like that you have Electric Piano 1, Electric Piano 2, Clavinet, Piano, Organ, and Other. What's "Other" tonight? [clicks through, it is synth strings, he starts playing the song on strings] Well friends, this is a song that asks us the question: what do you intend to do? What do you intend to do, Matt? What are you gonna do? When the cleaning crew...comes through? (Cleaning Crew)
- I've said this before, but I don't plan the middle part of the set list. So that I can call every other band on the planet a poser. [cheering] The downside of this is that occasionally the middle part of the set really drags. He couldn't figure out what to play, people started yelling requests, he couldn't make out what they were saying, the one guy said - it sounded like a very slow sort of process. Iunno man. I feel like I should play like, really super old stuff. [extremely enthusiastic cheering] Stuff I woulda played at the Pitzer open mic night. [crowd yells request, JD picks out chords] Hold on, hold on, excuse me, I need quiet. [JD laughs] Man, that was 15 years after that. You gotta wait for No Children. [starts song, audience claps, JD stops playing] Matt Douglas hates that I ask people not to clap, but Matt's not here. [laughs] The reason I do it is that clapping for 3 minutes is kind of a big endeavor and the clap always dissipates. And it's very anorgasmic, y'know, ah, they're clapping, aw, the one guy got bored. (The Water Song)
- I don't play this one very often anymore. [starts playing piano intro] And I feel like it's probably 'cause I end up mixing up the verse order. But I want Matt to hear it. It is a song about a guy, to whom an amazing thing happens. But it's not the thing he thinks it is. The first guy wakes up one morning to learn that his true love has been kidnapped by an evil dragon. [cheers] Why are you cheering for the evil dragon?! This takes place in a kingdom where evil means evil and good means good. The evil dragon means nobody any good. Very bitter person. Boo to the evil dragon, indeed! And so, when this fella wakes up and he learns that his true love has been kidnapped by the evil dragon and taken away to the dungeon, for God knows what nefarious purpose, although, many people have rendered those purposes in gifs on the internet, I am sorry to tell you. They leave little to the imagination. So, but, [suddenly stops piano] our dude, our dude wakes up, and I've said this a lot of times, but it's because I really think about it a lot. [starts piano again] If this happened to me. The first thing I would do would be lie to my children. Mom had to go to work, and she'll be...back...when you get home from school, so I'm gonna take you guys to school now. And don't go get any ideas that our princess has been kidnapped by an evil dragon, because that's exactly what didn't happen, fellas. Don't even worry about it. And the kids would say, Dad's talking about his stuff again. But I'll tell you what I wouldn't do. I wouldn't jump down a manhole. With a hammer. To say there's gotta be an evil dragon down here somewhere. And I'm gonna find him. And I'm gonna bash his brains around the wall of the dungeon. And rescue my beloved from the evil, wretched, horrible dragon that has blighted our kingdom. But as I say, this song isn't actually about that guy. That's just sorta how the story gets started. Because he goes through many terrible trials en route to the dungeon. And he even - you will find this hard to believe - he dies several times. He can die a lot of times if you're playing it on the home system, which is a weakness of the home system. [piano stops] You should have to put a quarter in. [piano resumes] Otherwise you got no skin in the game. This generation is weak people. [laughs] But he gets there, you know, he does all the things he's supposed to do, and he gets to where he's going, and then he fights the evil dragon over the lake of fire, and the dragon is defeated and falls into the lake of fire. And a door opens behind the dungeon, and he prepares to see his beloved. She's not there. His friend who he didn't even know was missing is there. Who are you, plumber guy, that you didn't even know your friend was languishing in the dungeon? Who was going to rescue your friend while you ran off on your errands of courtly love, fellow in the charming overalls? Who was going to rescue this fine young fellow, who, instead of yelling at you, were you gonna let me die in here? Were you gonna let me starve to death? Just jumps up and puts his arms into the air and says: thank you Mario, but our princess is in another castle. (Thank You Mario But Our Princess Is In Another Castle)
- What I like about some of the new songs is that I don't have to play anything. Like, I wrote them, I could play them if I wanna. But I don't have to. I get to like, pop my collar a lot. It's very important. Very nourishing and fulfilling to go back to the collar popping that I was born to do. This is from a record we got coming out soon, called Jenny from Thebes. It's called Only One Way. (Only One Way)
- This is, a year ago I was joking, y'know, this is a song about the, the takeover of the robots. Now, it's still about that but it's less funny than it was a year ago. (Incandescent Ruins)
- [crowd starts yelling for a drum solo, Wurster plays, instead of a drum solo, the beat to "50 Ways To Leave Your Lover"]
JD: Step out the back, Jack. [laughing] Uh, on violin and guitar is Isa Burke, who literally had - [pause for cheering] - who literally had her first rehearsal with us like, three weeks ago. [more cheering] And tonight in San Francisco she's going to experience the first time John calls an audible of a song she hasn't played with us before. But Isa, it's in C, you know.
Isa: Thank you.
JD: And I wrote it, so it's not like it's gonna go like, C to like, Ebmaj7 or something. [Peter, in the background, teaches Isa the rest of the chords] It's a song about two guys who are dead. Before they died, they were murdered. It is a dance number, but it's also kind of, Jon, I would say, a tender ballad. Do you know what I'm talking about, Jon? Yeah! I'm talking about the Diaz Brothers! (The Diaz Brothers)
- I dunno if you know this about me, but I bring some badass players with me. Isa Burke! [cheering] I wanna play, man I'll tell you, I wanna play a song off The Sunset Tree, [cheering] I'm gonna freestyle this. I'm gonna play a song from Sunset Tree, a song written by me, toward the end of 2003 [JD laughing]. I sent it to Peter and then I went on vacation to the Isle of Palms Sea, don't give me that look, Peter, that was a good one. [crowd hoots] I don't have another E rhyme, uh, something that would have to do with larceny, burglary, murder me, you know. Something like that. But I don't have those. But it's a fond memory, actually. I wrote this song - writing the Sunset Tree, as you might imagine, was kind of like, opening up little poison bottles in my brain. And you open one, and it feels funky, but you get something good out of it so you do it again. And it was getting real weird in my skull. And we had just moved to North Carolina, so my wife and I went to the beach for a week, and I had written this song, and I sent it to Peter, and he sent me an email, and he said, I know you're on vacation and I wasn't gonna bother you, but I really like my bass line for this. I am also very fond of this bass line. [ed: me too, long live Peter Peter Hughes] (Up the Wolves)
- Fellas if it's all the same to you, I'm gonna get of this guitar that holds me down and prowl the stage. Like a, like a, like an ocelot, you know. I don't wanna be over ambitious, but I do wanna be able to bite. THis is a song that's in 6/8, but you can count it in 3, but it's all the same to me. [band starts to play intro] This is the song that people ask me to sign their divorce papers over. Wait, is that what you have?! [someone throws their divorce papers on stage, everyone cheers wildly, JD starts to read them] Notice to respondent: you have been sued! Read the information below and on the next page! You have thirty calendar days after this summons and petition are served to you to file a response! That's form FL-120, at the court, and have a copy served on the petitioner. A letter, a phone call, or court appearance will not protect you! I wanted to settle this in therapy, but you wouldn't go to therapy with me! I tried to talk to you about it before dinner, and I tried to talk to you about it after dinner. Sometimes you'd enter into the conversation but I didn't feel like you were doing so in earnest. We can't have these conversations if we're not going to speak in earnest. To one another, and for this reason, and for many others, I am taking you to family court! Standard family law restraining orders starting immediately! You and your spouse - keep vamping, fellas, this is a long paper - [audience laughs] are restrained from removing the minor children of the parties from the state, or applying for a new or replacement passport for those minor children without the prior, written consent of the other party or an order of the court. There's four pages. [woo!] Behind those four pages rest a lot of things that are none of our business. When you come to the point of having these papers in your hand you need a song in your heart. This is that song. (No Children)
Videos