In our individual memories, we all carry a few of those shows. You know what i mean–those shows we’ve seen that were so incredible, so life-affirming, so indelibly seared into our consciousness that we’re destined to take the memories to our graves as part of our souls. Forgive me for the flowery prose, but i couldn’t help feeling that Wednesday night’s Superchunk/Mountain Goats show at the Metro–the “Eff Cancer” benefit for the now-deceased Sean Silver that we previously mentioned here–was one of those moments. Because, wow. (Note: photos from the show behind the cut! Woot! Holla! And other exclamations as well!)

My friends Lindsey and Jamie and i arrived too late to see the opening act, Chicago’s The Ponys, so we only caught one song. Sorry, guys, we live in Milwaukee and have jobs. What can you do? After a bite at the hot dog joint across the street from the Metro, we wandered in, the ladies got their beers, and we made our way to the floor level.

Now, before i get into the Mountain Goats (whom, upon re-reading my previous post regarding this show, i recall saying that they hoped the Cubs would be playing .500 ball when they got to town, so i’d like to say in response: tppppppppppt!! BREWERS!! BREWERS!! KEEP TURNIN’ UP THE HEAT!!), i need to establish my usual take on singer-songwriter dudes and chicks with acoustic guitars. That take is very easy to summarize: they usually bore the shit out of me. More specifically, i have two issues with the whole escapade:

1) Typically, i can’t get into a singer-songwriter with an acoustic guitar unless i have some sort of background or context regarding the songwriter’s life story or personality, lest the musician be relegated to oh-gee-another-douchebag-with-an-acoustic-guitar-how-novel status. If some random shmuck walks onstage with a guitar and just starts singing, i can’t be fucked to bother. Anyone can pick up a guitar, bucko–make me care that you did. One example of an artist who’s overcome this is Eric Bachmann, aka Crooked Fingers. But honestly, that’s because his previous band, the Archers of Loaf, were one of my favorite bands of all time.

2) One of the most annoying things in the world at a rock show is the acoustic guitarist who insists on everyone in the room being polite and quiet while they play their ballads about being done wrong or whatever. If you’re playing open mic in a coffee shop and you are being drowned out by coffee shop conversation, well, suck it up and play better songs so they have a reason to shut the hell up and pay attention to you.

Well, let me officially announce that as of Wednesday night i am fully converted to Mountain Goats fandom based on this performance. John Darnielle has a personality that can light up the entire room, and he’s able to mix heart-wrenching, intensely personal songcraft with the most charming, affable, “aw shucks” glee i’ve ever seen in a musician. That, and his excellent between-song banter, which told me what he was all about right away without being all “i’m going to tell you exactly what each of these songs is about,” took care of #1.

As for #2, well, i still stand by it–make me shut up if you can. That being said, the Chicago crowd at the Metro Wednesday night were probably some of the rudest dumbfucks i’ve ever been around. Despite the amplification of guitars and vocals, John’s quietest ballads were pretty much drowned out by a room where at least 500 of the 1000 people were LOUDLY yapping at each other in the balcony bar area, while the other 500 downstairs on the main floor were trying to listen. This wasn’t a bunch of people sitting in a coffee shop stuck at an open mic night–these are people who paid 20 dollars to specifically be at a rock show. Wtf, Chicago? Seriously.

Still, John was a trooper, until the third last song, when he politely said, “look, i hate those guys with acoustic guitars who always tell the audience to be quiet, but this show was put together for a friend of ours who just died, and this next song is one i wrote in 1998 about a friend of mine who died, and it took me a year to be able to say anything to him.” And with that one self-effacing, polite request for silence (which fell on ignoring ears), he had won me over. He proceeded to play this quiet, gorgeous song that we could barely hear UNTIL he moved away from the mic, came to the very edge of the stage, and sang without the microphone in a voice that, while not yelling in the least, had the presence to carry to all of us over the din of the audience. It was positively magical and spellbinding, and as he continued to cathartically bash out the remainder of the song, i admit a got a little teary from the emotion of it all. And then, for him to follow that up by saying “i spit at death!” and launching into “This Year?” And then closing with a cover of “The Boys Are Back in Town?” Too fucking much. Mountain Goats, i salute you for being captivating and incredible!

Also, in the most precious “awwww!” moment of the evening, as John cleared out his gear from the stage area, a young curly dark-haired lass shyly presented him with a pie. A whole pie! He accepted it graciously and seemed genuinely flattered, and as he walked off stage, he paused, looked back at her, and coyly licked the pie. TOO CUTE.

But as you may know already, i was there for goddamn motherfracking Superchunk. I have spent the last 12 years or so listening to classic Superchunk songs at least once a month. I really can’t overstate how important this band is to me personally. And until Wednesday night, i had only seen them live once–at Milwaukee’s worst venue, The Rave, in 1999, on tour for, i believe, Come Pick Me Up, which was when i had decided that they had mellowed out too much for me to keep buying new releases. I am such an unabashed fanboy that i strayed perilously close to being “that guy,” the guy who wears the t-shirt of the band he’s going to see. (What i did instead was wear the t-shirt of Rocket Fuel is the Key, a Kansas City post-punk band who took their name from a ‘Chunk lyric in the song “Kicked In.” Fuck you, i’m a nerd.) I was really hoping that tonight, having slowed their schedule over the last few years, they were in “let’s play the hits” mode.

I wasn’t disappointed.

They opened with, if memory serves, “Throwing Things,” “Animated Airplanes Over Germany,” “On The Mouth” (”On the Mouth!” A frickin’ b-side! If you ignore its prominent sequencing on Incidental Music, anyway), and “Seed Toss” in that order. They played “Let it Go” from the first album. They played “Untied” off On the Mouth. They played some later period stuff i didn’t recognize because when they released “Hello Hawk” i gave up (and yet i was so happy tonight i sang along to “Hello Hawk.” Wtf). They played “Without Blinking,” “Kicked In” (She said Rocket Fuel is the Key!), and “Water Wings” off foolish all in a row. And they ended with “Punch me Harder” and “Slack Motherfucker.”

Encore 1: “Like a Fool,” “Precision Auto.”

Encore 2: “Hyper Enough.”

And through it all, i danced, i pogo’d, and i screamed and yelled so many lyrics that i had a headache that i’m still feeling two days later. I apparently slammed into Lindsey and accidentally made Jamie spill her beer down her shirt. Look, i’m sorry, but it’s Superchunk’s fault for opening with goddamn “Throwing Things,” OK? There was no warmup, just immediate audience freakout.

I wasn’t alone, either–plenty of the Chicago faithful were pogoing along with me, including a few bald chach-looking douchebags in the front row with whom i was being friendly, but wouldn’t have had i known beforehand that they bullied some little girls out of their spot in the front row before high-fiving each other at the opening chords of each song. Shouldn’t these guys have been at a Dave Matthews show? Ah, well. It didn’t take away from the glee of watching Mac and Laura pogoing all over the stage along with us, like they always do.

I can count on one hand the number of shows in the past few years that have left me feeling this excited and alive: Touch and Go 25 last September, and Turbonegro in Milwaukee in 2003. Like i said before, this was one of those shows–those shows that will live in your bones until they turn to dust. During the entire set, my face carried one solitary expression, which Lindsey managed to capture for posterity:

That’s 100% genuine Superchunk glee. I am a fucking spazzified dorktastic nerdwad.

Or, in the parlance of last night, i’m hyper enough as it is.

(Note: All these photos were taken by Lindsey Heist. Didn’t they turn out great?)

5 Comments »

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Leave a comment

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website