That’s how it went. We waited and then we didn’t.

We ended up front and just-left-of-center. Like, look at that dweeb in between the two speakers in this photo:

That is me. I am the dweeb.

While I’m on the subject of goat friends, here’s some more sap: being able to experience this show with people I love who love the Mountain Goats — and strangers-turned-new-friends-because-they-love-the-Mountain-Goats — immediately made the night so very special.

Contrary to what several grumps near us (who still only made up a very tiny part of an altogether incredible audience) were so vocal about believing as they loudly made fun of my friends and I, the Mountain Goats are a band about optimism and resilience and celebrating the total victory of living to fight another day every day. Our group took that to heart, and I’m very grateful I got to live that night out with them — with people who are respectful but fiercely enthusiastic, who yelled along or kept an awed silence depending on the song, who left no room for irony. I’m not an official astronaut person, but I think our positive energy and gratitude could be seen from space. That’s a conservative estimate.

And that’s where I like to live, you know? In spaces dedicated to celebrating the things we love and the people we love them with. That’s what I seek out, and I’ve found that what really sticks in my life does so when this is met halfway, when all those good vibes are matched by whatever/whoever brought us together in the first place.

The Mountain Goats do that. The Mountain Goats do not mess around when it comes to good vibes.

I’ve been listening to the Goats for a good five years now, give or take. In that time, I’ve come to love the way I’m always discovering new songs of theirs, always learning a little more backstory. Along the same lines, the Boston show taught me that there are things about the band I would never have learned in my room or through my headphones.

Like the way John Darnielle thanks the audience after every single song and half a dozen times after the very last encore. Like the way you can see the truth in their assertion that they don’t plan their encores, because they’re sincere in their first goodbyes and elated to be welcomed back onstage. Like the way that they’re all smiles when the crowd screams along and when it bears silent witness, through songs about triumph and devastation alike.

The Mountain Goats’ brand of gratitude and positivity is immutably genuine. Being part of that changes you in the very best way.

I’m big on unironic enthusiasm and wearing my heart on my sleeve and clinging to my convictions. I’m a front-row-whenever-I-can-swing-it, “jump-up-and-down-in-the-chair-can’t-control-yourself love it” kind of person. I’m also anxious and insecure to a fault. These things mix terribly.

I tend to hype myself up for shows and events but come out of them wishing I had let myself live a little more, wishing I had danced and sung along, wishing I had shut out all my worries for just that moment. I’ve been working on breaking out of that for a long time, and I’d love to say it’s anything but the slow and frustrating process it is — that I’m anywhere near where I want to be. For years and years, I’ve let my fear of other people create a gap between what I live by and how I live. I’m not proud of that.

On Tuesday the fourteenth, though, the Mountain Goats created a space where I felt so safe as to live beyond my boundaries for the night and leave the venue a little freer. From the moment the band walked onstage right through the third and final time they waved us goodbye, they were so happy and so present that I realized I could be, too.

John Darnielle, in particular, seemed to operate on three distinct settings all night: 1) transcending worldly bullshit to jam out unburdened by any possible scrutiny, 2) singing songs like it was the first time and last time even when it was the thousandth, and 3) connecting with the audience in real, unforgettable ways.

He sang along to T-Rex’s The Slider (which cues the band’s entrance after we hear Dusty Rhodes’ “hard times” speech), spun joyfully in circles during instrumental solos, danced with his bandmates every chance he got, straight up growled out lines like “I’m gonna bribe the officials / I’m gonna kill all the judges / It’s gonna take you people years to recover from all of the damage” (during which I am 93% sure he was looking at me while I did the same), and poured his whole heart into every single song.

For a dude creeping up on twenty-five years making and performing music as the Mountain Goats, you’d never know this wasn’t his first night before a crowd that sang his words back at him. Song after song, line after line, JD never let up on these awed smiles and surprised laughs in reaction to our reception. Sometimes he’d touch his hand to his heart in gratitude. Sometimes he’d point at a guy in a Lucha mask or anyone screaming along to a line. Sometimes — a bunch of times, actually — he’d look over at our little group and share a moment with us; we’d sing a line at each other and he’d smile to let us know he was as stoked to be there as we were.