Ryan ChartrandPlenty of conversations bounced around my dorm freshman year about what drugs would expand certain musical experiences. No specifics needed really, but I am way too much of a pansy to even experiment with most of them.
However, the Mountain Goats show on Saturday found me somewhere accidentally in the right place. I’m super sick right now, which means weaning myself off of addictions to cigarettes and coffee.
In addition, it means loading up on cough syrup from a really old bottle which I believe may contain codeine. Basically, by the time I bike up to the show, I’m pulled between high anxiety and a muted detachment from the world.
All of my glimpses of lead singer John Darnielle before the show occur somewhere in this mindset. I either see him wandering off to scout the town or sitting alone on the balcony of the Steynberg Gallery writing in an unlined notebook.
The fact is that he’s really sick and completely out of it as well. However, he’s still primly cut and sporting a nice jacket and a collared shirt.
I only mention these things because I’m wearing a similar outfit, but managing to look slightly vagrant at the same time. I spent part of the time before the show wandering and writing in my little unlined notebook.
The fact is that the shared characteristics make me feel shoddy by the end of the night because John Darnielle is one of the most amazing performers I’ve seen and I’m just a college undergraduate with a creative output that stands pretty damn close to zero. Somewhere around 200 people were seated on the floor in the gallery as he played and most of the time it was dead quiet.
Most of the songs were off of the two recent albums “Get Lonely” and “The Sunset Tree.” Songs from “Get Lonely” were especially quiet as Darnielle sang about quiet nights alone wandering past high school football fields. Perhaps the most amazing thing was Darnielle’s ability to completely detach himself from the current moment and completely live in a past moment with each song.
When he choked on words that he seemed to not be able to spit out, it seemed like the real thing and not a whole bunch of theatrics. However, the moment the song was over he would smile through applause as if he found a perfect cathartic release in each exact reliving of a past moment.
And the whole time, I’m anxious and completely withdrawn and the whole experience becomes muted and surreal. I’m feeling completely insignificant watching what a friend calls “one of my idols.” He has managed to quiet a packed house to the point where they can catch even the nuances of his whisper. When he’s done, he receives a demanding and large encore.
Let’s face it – most of the time the encore seems forced. But this time, the continual cathartic release was 100 percent desired by everyone there.
When the show ends, I spend some time talking to the members of Pony Up! who opened the show. Their lead singer looks somewhat like my high school prom date, and I’m trying to pull all of them to the afterparty.
However, they tell me they are all pretty sick. I tell them about my codeine cough syrup and, of course, they ask me where they can get some of that.
Show tip: One AM Radio tonight at the Steynberg Gallery at 7 p.m. Parenthetical Girls and Dead Science will be playing at the Steynberg at 7 p.m. on Thursday. You should so go because it will be an amazing show, and there will be an amazing afterparty with some more live music.
Graham Culbertson is a journalism sophomore and general manager of KCPR, Cal Poly’s independent radio station.
E-mail any questions, comments or suggestions to graham.culbertson@gmail.com