1000 Tiny Birds: 2024 edition

The Mountain Goats

Bristol Beacon, 2024-05-21

  1. The Mountain Goats are one of Alasdair’s favourite bands - a band that I have at least a passing interest in, and a person I have almost total interest in. Ideal combo. Obviously we’re going.

  2. Luckily, I think on a macro level, even the die hard fans can only really be said to have a passing knowledge of them - they have like 700 songs and their setlists almost entirely vary from night to night. There is no sense trying to revise for this gig, you just have to let it wash over you. Alasdair notes that every song played will be someone in that room’s favourite, and that’s quite a nice thing to think about.

  3. It’s good fun! John Darnielle and co are warm presences on stage, they play the three songs I was expected to notice, as well as some that made Alasdair very happy indeed, so what more can you ask really? I certainly have some follow-up listening to do as a result.

  4. This gig probably takes the record for highest number of coincidental bumping-in-tos I’ve ever had. We start on a table of three with just me, Alasdair, and Mahoney, and before you know it, we’ve accumulated a table of seven. Thankfully, this reassures me that I am not the least TMG-aware person in attendenace tonight, and emphasises how much the vibe of this gig is half obsessives, half the hapless friends they have brought with them.

  5. We wait around in the rain afterwards, two of maybe only five or so, hoping to encounter John Darnielle. Fair play to the man, he just wants to get on the bus and go to London, but he dutifully signs Alasdair’s record, informs him the signature is terrible because of the room, and does not involve the security guards when Alasdair babbles at him. A success.