The Mountain Goats aren’t a complicated band. Admittedly, in recent times they’ve expanded their line-up from master songwriter John Darnielle and his guitar to encompass a drummer and bassist but they’ve stuck hard and true to a formula that has yet to disappoint. Take a bunch of well-crafted if unspectacular melodies, mix in some gleefully idiosyncratic lyrics and a generous dash of infectious enthusiasm and you’ve got yourself a hit; a kind of alt-folk Hold Steady if you will. Latest album Heretic Pride has divided opinion amongst old-time fans, some saying it lacks the lyrical brilliance of their previous work, but this tour de force of a performance suggests their live lustre only grows brighter.
Darnielle’s cracked croon isn’t to everyone’s taste, and for the first couple of songs it’s afflicted with a wheedling quality that’s painfully distracting- luckily, it settled down swiftly into something more palatable. What is beyond criticism his the liveliness of his performance; like Micah P. Hinson at his best, he plays with gleeful abandon, coming across as effortlessly cool by virtue of not trying in the least to be. A slightly awkward, but erudite raconteur, he raises more than a few laughs with lines like, “we’re having so much fun. Now for a song about child abuse…” and unlike certain of his peers, he seemed to be genuinely enjoying performing in London. The general good vibe was aided by an unusually attentive audience, most of whom knew every word of every song in the Goats back catalogue- during the Heretic Pride-focused first half reaction was more polite than rapturous, but come a succession of old favourites and the odd rarity the crowd whipped itself up into a fan boy frenzy, culminating in a particularly robust sing-along of Hail Satan to round off proceedings in the best possible way.
Support act The Young Republic weren’t too shabby either; some superb string work and an exuberant crowd-rousing front man with more than a hint of Will Sheff about him helped elevate their otherwise competent upbeat alt-country stylings into something far more accomplished. They seriously need to cut out the stodgy sub-Santana guitar wankery though- the winces of pained embarrassment on my neighbours’ faces said it all.
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