

[screen cap from capnkoons video here]

There are times when the people who book shows make the perfect pairing of a band and a venue and this weekend the Mountain Goats and City Winery were a marriage made in heaven. We caught both nights with two different NYCTaper contributors but we both were in complete agreement that these were outstanding shows in large part because of where they took place. City Winery prides itself on being a “listening room” — a place where people who come to see an artist perform respect the music. There is literally a pre-show message to refrain from talking during the music. For Mountain Goats fans however, the warning may not be actually necessary. They may sing along with the lyrics (all known by heart) and call out the most obscure requests in between songs, but when the band is playing, the listening is happening. And City Winery is both large enough to satisfy the two-night ticket demand for this band, and small enough to maintain a nice level of intimacy.

The Mountain Goats are currently on tour in support of Beat the Champ, which is ostensibly John Darnielle’s tribute to the early days of professional wrestling of the 1970s and early 80s. But as with the Mountain Goats music, there’s much going on beneath the surface of these songs. The basic routines that made wrestling attractive to suburban kids of the time — identifiable heroes and villains, fluid loyalties, physical comedy, and deception — are all themes that Darnielle is comfortable covering in Mountain Goats material as symbols of wider human truths. For example, the protagonist in “The Legend of Chavo Guerrero” (streaming below) becomes the “good guy” foil to Darnielle’s abusive stepfather and “Southwestern Territory” becomes a parable for the musician’s life on the road. In a lengthy show at City Winery, these and other Champ songs fit well within a career spanning setlist that offered a “gimmick” of its own. The band had played a pared-down “basement” set for the City Winery’s video series this week and enjoyed the experience so much that the actual stage plot on this night featured a small drum kit and Peter Hughes fretless bass — an “unplugged” set-up if you will. There were also some change-ups, as usual set-closer “This Year” appeared very early in the set, and “No Children” featured a complete-song vocal performance by the crowd while Darnielle led the chorus while standing on a table in the audience. Other highlights of this terrifically entertaining set included personal favorite “Up The Wolves” (also streaming below), “Foreign Object” with the outstanding horn work from new band member Matt Douglas, and a goofy acoustic cover of the Grateful Dead’s “St. Stephen” — and of course a significant amount of John’s usual humorous banter. While the Mountain Goats will not be back in NYC until next year — the current tour runs through June and then its off to Europe in the Fall — we expect that when they do the NYC shows will again be at City Winery. At least we hope they are, since this was one of my favorite tMG shows of the many I have seen.

I recorded this set with the Schoeps cards clamped to the same beam that acidjack used for the previous night’s show and mixed with a superb soundboard feed by longtime Mountain Goats FOH Brandon Eggleston. The sound quality is quite excellent. Enjoy!

Download the Complete Show [MP3] / [FLAC]

Stream “Up The Wolves”:



Stream “The Legend of Chavo Guerrero”



Mountain Goats

2015-04-12

City Winery

New York NY

Digital Master Recording

Soundboard + Audience Matrix

Soundboard [Engineer: Brandon Eggleston] + Schoeps CCM4u Cardioids > Edirol R-44 (Oade Concert Mod) > 2 x 24bit 48kHz wav files > Soundforge (level adjustments, mixdown, EQ, set fades) > CDWave 1.95 (tracking) > TLH > flac (320 MP3 and tagging via Foobar)

Recorded and Produced by nyctaper

Setlist:

[Total Time 1:45:07]

01 [wrestling intro]

02 Get Lonely

03 [banter – basement]

04 Werewolf Gimmick

05 This Year

06 Animal Mask

07 Slow West Vultures

08 [banter – weapon]

09 Foreign Object

10 Luna

11 Deuteronomy 2:10

12 Shot in the Dark [Ozzy Osbourne]

13 [banter – audible]

14 Steal Smoked Fish

15 St. Stephen [Grateful Dead cover]

16 Cotton

17 The Ballad of Bull Ramos

18 Cry for Judas

19 Pigs That Ran Straightaway Into the Water, Triumph Of

20 Love Love Love

21 Choked Out

22 Up the Wolves

23 The Legend of Chavo Guerrero

24 [encore break]

25 The Diaz Brothers

26 [banter – fiefdoms]

27 Southwestern Territory

28 No Children

29 [second encore break]

30 Amy aka Spent Gladiator 1

If you download this recording from NYCTaper, PLEASE SUPPORT The Mountain Goats, visit their website, and purchase Beat the Champ from the Merge Records website [HERE].