Mountain Goats in Ames
Thursday night I visited Charles and pulled a dead fish out of a bottle with two long, narrow wooden sticks. I won no prizes.
Friday we went to Ames, Iowa to see the Mountain Goats. We saw some of the opening act, The Prayers and Tears of Arthur Digby Sellers, who also joined the Mountain Goats on stage for a couple songs. They seemed okay, but I don't have anything in particular to say about them.
The Maintenance Shop had some stained glass and a bar and was more wide than deep. It felt like a nice place to be. I don't know what the capacity was, but probably what you'd expect for a small campus venue.
We met this girl Laura who was from Minneapolis, because we were standing next to her. Charles managed to one-up her in a discussion about the Microphones, although to her credit, she did mention John Vanderslice, whom Charles has no experience with. She claimed, I think, that Colin Meloy of the Decemberists is the second greatest songwriter writing songs right now right behind Mr. Vanderslice. She was apparently at the Decemberists/Long Winters show last year at the 400 Bar, so we reminisced about how that was a really good time.
John Darnielle and bassist Peter Hughes played some number of songs which amounted to what seemed to me to be a kind of short set, but what do I know? I enjoyed the songs from the new album fairly well. There was older stuff. I would agree with Charles that probably the best was when they had a full band, but I liked the song about eating jam out of a jar a lot, too.
We saw but didn't buy this t-shirt, the phrase at the bottom of which means: "From the founding of the city (Rome)." Charles didn't like the show, but wasn't bitter about it. If he ever resumes blogging, he can tell you why.
Friday we went to Ames, Iowa to see the Mountain Goats. We saw some of the opening act, The Prayers and Tears of Arthur Digby Sellers, who also joined the Mountain Goats on stage for a couple songs. They seemed okay, but I don't have anything in particular to say about them.
The Maintenance Shop had some stained glass and a bar and was more wide than deep. It felt like a nice place to be. I don't know what the capacity was, but probably what you'd expect for a small campus venue.
We met this girl Laura who was from Minneapolis, because we were standing next to her. Charles managed to one-up her in a discussion about the Microphones, although to her credit, she did mention John Vanderslice, whom Charles has no experience with. She claimed, I think, that Colin Meloy of the Decemberists is the second greatest songwriter writing songs right now right behind Mr. Vanderslice. She was apparently at the Decemberists/Long Winters show last year at the 400 Bar, so we reminisced about how that was a really good time.
John Darnielle and bassist Peter Hughes played some number of songs which amounted to what seemed to me to be a kind of short set, but what do I know? I enjoyed the songs from the new album fairly well. There was older stuff. I would agree with Charles that probably the best was when they had a full band, but I liked the song about eating jam out of a jar a lot, too.
We saw but didn't buy this t-shirt, the phrase at the bottom of which means: "From the founding of the city (Rome)." Charles didn't like the show, but wasn't bitter about it. If he ever resumes blogging, he can tell you why.
Labels: Music
Posted on Saturday, April 02, 2005
1 Comment(s):
The Prayers and Tears of Arthur Digby Sellers are from Chapel Hill, which I guess makes sense since John Darnielle is from Durham that he would bring them along. I saw them open for Saturday Looks Good To Me in October and they were about as you described.
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