Going to Scotland

Just a quick blog entry. I headed over to Glasgow on Monday, to catch the Mountain Goats, at Oran Mor. They were part of the Pineapple Folk Gathering, along with
Emmy the Great
Alasdair Roberts
and Micah P Hinson.

I'll not pretend that I had heard of anyone else on the bill, but the word on the blogs was that it was a pretty good line up, and lets face it, if the other bands were good it was simply a bonus, a chance to see the Mountain Goats live was just too good to miss.

Anyway, first up was Emmy the Great, who was enchanting, a wonderfully relaxed way with the audience, which was very winning, and the songs were gorgeous too, densely literary, but lightly musical. I've downloaded an EP from iTunes. Certainly one to watch out for in future, if she gets round to actually recording and releasing more stuff. Perhaps not the most ruthlessly ambitious artist out there!

Alasdair Roberts was probably the most 'folk' of the acts, it did rather pass me by I am afraid, musically good, but the lyrics and vocals failed to grab me. He did probably suffer from being the most traditional act, on a rather more lo-fi bill.

Skipping to the last act, Micah P Hinson, ostensibly the headliner, he was slightly shambolic, but engaging, and came across as a sort of drugged up Richard Hawley. The most fabulous of deep Texan drawls, and the sort of Dick Dale/Billy Bragg almost orchestral electric guitar. However after the energy of the Mountain Goats, an hour long set felt a bit long. One to check out on iTunes though, there was some cracking stuff in there.

Finally, the Mountain Goats, clearly the stars for the night, my wife was at the back and she said that a whole bunch of people appeared just for them. I was however in the throng at the front. They came on, John Darneille, slightly goofy/cuddly, tie-less suit, and Peter Hughes long and dapper with a suit, tie and waistcoat. They set up amiably enough, looking exactly as they look in the photos, which is an inane thing to say, but it always disconcerts me.

They kicked off with It Froze Me, which was quite slow, then alternating between belters and quieter songs. However even with the quieter songs the whole room was rapt and quiet.

I think that the power of art is that suddenly you have something that is much more than the sum of its parts, it is no longer a mark on paper, or notes and words, it is something that forcibly grabs you and affects you. Here were two men, with guitars, creating something at once deeper and richer than normal life, something that seemed more real/true and more passionate, than the everyday.

There was a bit of good natured banter with the audience, I particularly liked when John started to introduce a song as being about, when you want to be locked up alone in your house for months, and Peter said that that could be any of them.

John also had a rather endearing way of asking for a beer from the bar. He shredded a guitar string, quickly flicked it up, and carried on with the song. There was more banter while they were offered a guitar from Emmy.

There were quite a few of the songs where we were all singing along, No Children in particular, but there were a good few others, where a lot of us knew all the words.

They finished up, I went back to see my wife, and say how awesome it had been, and they came back for a howling mad version of Houseguest, which is worrying/disturbing, but very funny.

And then they were finally off. The only disappointment was the lack of Mountain Goat merchandise, but I suppose I can always design my own Mountain Goats shirt.

Good to see a few mentions on the blogs, and photos on Flickr. Also from some of the banter from the audience, it seemed clear that many of the people there had been listening the bootleg recordings of previous gigs rather than just the records. This is a group that you cannot find in a record shop, and whose best-selling record is rated

30,286 in Music by Amazon.

And yet, they filled an enthusiastic audience of over a hundred, singing along to a wide variety of their songs, on a Monday night in Glasgow, with virtually no publicity.

I suppose the fact that they are very good must be a factor, but the web is creating opportunities that never existing before for artists with talent to find their audiences.