We finally saw the Mountain Goats at the Middle East last night. This is the third concert we've tried to get to in the past few months, and our first success. We're not so good at securing tickets sometimes. We missed getting seats at the upcoming They Might Be Giants show by about two days. Darn!
We met Nat and his friends early in the day for dinner in Porter Square, then pointed them back towards Route 2 and dashed over to Central Square so as not to arrive late--but we needn't have. The Moaners (warning: sound), an excellent all-woman rock/punk/blues band with delightful southern accents, opened for the Goats, and they didn't take the stage until two and a half hours after we arrived. I'll admit that I haven't been to very many concerts, but this seemed unusual. I began to wonder if they would cancel the show altogether. Were the bands stuck at Logan? Snarled in traffic? Getting ice cream? Stephen and I played Boticelli, Twenty Questions, and the Alphabet Game (take turns naming a brand/food/town in Massachusetts that begins with each letter of the alphabet) as we waited. Stephen got a beer. I found a bench to sit on. We people-watched. There were folks of all different ages and sensibilities there, which was cool. College students wearing witty t-shirts, hipsters in tight jeans, outdoorsy thirty-somethings with beards and polarfleece, older folks in wool sweaters and sensible shoes. The Cambridge Crowd.
Once the show got going, everyone was into it. John Darnielle told us his birthday was the next day, and we sang Happy Birthday. Stephen and I realized we could perch on the back of the bench and get a good view of the stage (difficult for me, at just under 5'2"). I haven't listened to any of the new Mountain Goats stuff, so I didn't know the lyrics, but the sound was familiar.
The show ended just before 1, with time to get the last train home. That's the latest we've been out in months, if not years, and I'm glad I don't do it every day. (Yes, that's right. I'm 100 years old and eat dinner at 4:30 so I can be back from Bingo by 8.) We were yawning by the end, and I slept in way too much this morning. But it was fun. Isn't live music always fun? Yes, it really is.
