It's been a long week, guys. So I'm just getting around to posting about the Mountain Goats. SUE ME! I don't even have crazy gossip, I just wanted to say WOW and YAY. Because holy poo, that was a great show.

It is really, really hard for me to watch people look bored while being paid money to sing onstage. I just want to be like, "YOUR JOB IS SINGING SONGS! The [figurative] lottery! You won it!" If you're not actually into music (or joy), you should probably get a different job, like frowning at the post office or looking poetically uninterested at Ross Dress for Less. (Those are not real jobs. If you like frowning and hate people, you should be a private-contract, freelance, work-at-home frowner/annoyed-sigher on the side and then just do your other job kind of nicely if other humans have to interact with you. We're all just trying to get along!).

That doesn't mean it's silly/wrong to be serious, or honestly sad, or screamingly angry. Or try what John Darnielle did on Monday, which is to somehow express—through body language and commentary and facial expression—a sort of unbridled gratitude and glee at the amazingness of making music for a living, and succeeding at the living part, and having other people love you for it, too. The love was boomeranging back and forth between the crowd and him, growing by the second until everyone was in the bubble of it, the audience singing along with nearly everything and shouting constant requests. At one point, he told everyone that the quiet songs are his favorite, but that no one ever sings along with them, which he understands, but man did it just make his day that everyone sang along with that quiet one just now. Also, how does he get away with such danged adorable jumping?

Also! He was clearly enamored of Matthew White's horn section, bringing them out to play with him multiple times and playing right back in their faces, leaning into the brass blast and grinning. Also also! He came back for two roaring encores, finally ending the night with "The Best Ever Death Metal Band out of Denton" ("When you punish a person for dreaming his dream/Don't expect him to thank or forgive you/The best ever death metal band out of Denton/Will in time both outpace and outlive you/Hail Satan!"), causing much of the audience to nearly collapse in a shared paroxysm of bliss. Everyone hugged and laughed and cried. I have been crying at a ton of music this year! JEEZ.