I think my wife Aimée may have sort of fallen in love with John Darnielle. We saw the Mountain Goats last night at Sonar here in Baltimore, and it was a great, great, joyous, life-affirming show (Aimée: "Oh my god he is so adorable!"). If you like the Mountain Goats and haven't seen them, I strongly urge you take the opportunity to do so when it arises. If you don't know the Mountain Goats, well, you should get to know them. I place Darnielle in my inner circle of great working songwriters--with Bill Callahan, Will Oldham, and, at his best, Jason Molina.
He obviously loves performing, and he and bassist Peter Hughes were having a great time and sound terrific together. Of many great moments, the delivery of this line from Tallahassee's "Game Shows Touch Our Lives" was among the most memorable:
"People say friends don't destroy one another/what do they know about friends?"
And--yay!--the encore was "No Children" (also from Tallahassee). Fantastic.
Darnielle faves the Bowerbirds opened, and they were quite good. Also definitely worth checking out.