At the Varsity Theater on June 14, the Mountain Goats launched their summer tour for their latest album All Eternals Deck to an ebullient, packed crowd. Opening the show was one of Minneapolis’s strongest new bands Communist Daughter, who likely made many new fans—including the Mountain Goats’ bassist Peter Hughes, who smiled at side stage throughout Communist Daughter’s set.
Communist Daughter frontman John Solomon was clearly giddy (well, as excited as I’ve ever seen him on stage anyway) to be opening for a band he said he has admired since long before he ever picked up a guitar himself. Solomon isn’t exactly the most talkative singer on stage, but he had some really nice things to say during their set. Early on he mentioned that he had recently become engaged to band member Molly Moore, which generated a nice congratulatory cheer from the crowd. Solomon also introduced a brand new song as one that he had “written in City Center” while in rehab at Hazelden, saying that he was currently six months sober. But the most moving part of their entire set came when Solomon announced that his father had driven up from Missouri for the show, and proceeded to thank him for paying for his treatment; Solomon dedicated “Not the Kid” to his father. Solomon has battled plenty of demons for a while now, but it seems like he’s in a better place than ever.
The Mountain Goats kicked off their 90-minute set with “Liza Forever Minelli,” the closing song on the latest record; it got the crowd going right off the bat. Frontman John Darnielle prefaced “Jeff Davis County Blues” by stating that the song was written “about four hours south of here” (when Darnielle lived in Ames, Iowa). A few songs later, Darnielle introduced a song by sayin that “a thousand years ago, I wrote a song about a child actress who was a mess” (Diff’rent Strokes star Dana Plato). Someone in the crowd shouted out “Golden Boy!”, at which Darnielle snapped back rather bluntly, “no it’s not fucking ‘Golden Boy,’ shut up!” Darnielle then explained that the actress’s son had recently killed himself and that the song is called “Tyler Lambert’s Grave.” The song didn’t actually appear on All Eternals Deck, but was posted via Darnielle’s Twitter account as a reward when he reached 5,000 followers.
After that dark moment, the band left the stage to let John play a set of four songs solo acoustic: a cover of the Carole-King-penned “One Fine Day,” “You Were Cool,” “Going to Port Washington,” and “Woke Up New.” Before “Port Washington,” someone yelled. “Thank you for coming!”, to which Darnielle replied “Oh, my pleasure!” and explained how he felt when he lived in Ames and no one ever played there. (“James McMurtry came though once.”) Darnielle then went on to say he wrote “Port Washington” in the hallway of a Holiday Inn Express.
Darnielle brought the rest of the band back out to play a song off 1997’s Full Force Galesburg, prefaced with, “at the risk of pandering, this song is called ‘Minnesota.'” After closing with a moving version of “This Year,” the band returned for a short three-song encore, including one of my absolute favorite Mountain Goats songs, “Palmcorder Yajna,” with Darnielle saying, “this is a song about people addicted to meth, and I hope they get better soon.”
I’ve seen the Mountain Goats play in various configurations over the years, from just John Darnielle solo, to a duo with bassist Peter Hughes, to a three-piece with a drummer. However, the current four-piece lineup with Darnielle and Hughes joined by Superchunk’s Jon Wurster on drums and Yuvol Semo on keyboards was easily the best live incarnation of the band I have seen. It’s worth noting that one of my favorite drummers in the Twin Cities, Ian Prince (Story of the Sea, Kid Dakota, etc.), is now the full time drummer for Communist Daughter, so given that I got to see Prince as well as Wurster play the same stage in one night, I was in drummer heaven.
Mountain Goats Setlist
“Liza Forever Minnelli”
“Southwood Plantation Road”
“Jeff Davis County Blues”
“Estate Sale Sign”
“Birth of Serpents”
“Dinu Lipatti’s Bones”
“Tyler Lambert’s Grave”
“One Fine Day”
“You Were Cool”
“Going to Port Washington”
“Woke Up New”
“Minnesota”
“Broom People”
“Damn These Vampires”
“Seeing Daylight”
“Prowl Great Cain”
“This Year”
Encore
“No Children”
“Palmcorder Yajna”
“Houseguest” (Nothing Painted Blue cover)
Communist Daughter
The Mountain Goats
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