This was the second Mountain Goats I had ever been to. The first was 2 days earlier in Philadelphia in the basement of the First Unitarian Church (another great show). I had just gotten turned on to The Mountain Goats a few months earlier by Vin Scelsa (Idiot's Delight on WFUV). I had bought Tallahassee and We Shall All Be Healed and listened to the mp3 on TMG.net and was just blown away by the songs. Then I saw them live... OMG! So good! I've been going to live shows for 25 years and TMGs are amont the cream-of-the-crop. So I had met John Vanderslice and everyone in Shearwater 2 days earlier and was so caught up in this tour, the music and has just heard The Sunset Tree. All the stars were aligned for this show in Brooklyn. Shearwater and Eric Friedlander were great. The audience was great and the show was great. John is just such a great performer. One minute I was laughing my ass of and the next I was on the verge of tears. Highlights of this show for me: Color in Your Cheeks, International Small Arms Traffic Blues, Your Belgian Things, The "Hipsters" riff, Quito, and then hearing Shadow Song for the first time. Ughhh! Heart-wrenching!
So, to hear this show again in high quality has been such a treat. I had recorded this show on an older Olympus recorder and it has lots of noise on it, but this recording in the Archive is wonderful. I can actually here myself hooting and hollering throughout - kind of funny and disturbing. I was loving every moment.
So thank you for recording and sharing this show. Wonderful! Jeff