The Mountain Goats are midway through Andrew Eldritch Is Moving Back to Leeds – which drily relocates the Sisters of Mercy frontman back to music’s once so-called “goth capital” – when the stage suddenly fills with dry ice, the Sisters’ trademark. Within moments, the scene has come to resemble the set of John Carpenter’s horror flick The Fog. “That was a surprise!” chortles head Goat John Darnielle, as the mist is revealed to be a prank played on him by the venue. It’s one of several uproarious incidents in the first of two nights here with the man the New Yorker called “America’s best non-hip-hop lyricist”.
Darnielle has notched up 14 Mountain Goats albums and written two novels, and this 21-song evening is like standing in front of a gale of hurtling imagery. Jittery and bespectacled, his subjects are brilliantly scattergun, ranging from a girl he dated three decades ago to pro wrestlers to an encounter at a set of traffic lights with a fanged teenager. Each song comes laden with blistering one-liners (tonight’s favourite: “I’ll get through this year if it kills me”).
The Mountain Goats’ latest album, Goths, describes the impact of 80s eyeliner music on Darnielle’s youth and uses pop as a vehicle for deep insights. The New Order-esque Shelved, about a “new wavey” band who sign to a major label only to stay unreleased when fashions change, is as blackly humorous-but-moving as they come (“Not gonna tour with Trent Reznor, third of three, bottom of the bill”).
This tour features a stripped-down Goats lineup of just Darnielle and keyboard-pounding, bass-playing multi-instrumentalist Matt Douglas – a man not averse to a flute solo – and the seemingly under-rehearsed pair flirt with chaos but never entirely take its hand. The Grey King and the Silver Flame Attunement collapses in a heap, but when Darnielle forgets the lyrics to shouted request Alibi, he promises that if someone gets them up on their phone, he’ll sing it. When he does, he pauses momentarily to yell, “They spelled Covina wrong!”
Rain in Soho passionately paraphrases the Smiths (“There’s a club where you’d like to go…” ) and mourns Soho goth club the Batcave. By the final encore of The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton, he has the whole crowd feasting on his banter and singing his words, including “Hail Satan!” What a shame Andrew Eldritch wasn’t here to see it.
- At Brudenell Social Club, Leeds, 6 October. Box office: 0113 275 2411. Then touring.
