The Mountain Goats brought their Spectral Tide tour to Tulsa for a stop at the Vanguard with support from queer country artist Adeem the Artist. Previously scheduled for April, the show was postponed due to singer and guitarist/pianist John Darnielle contracting COVID. So, as you can imagine, the concert has been highly anticipated by fans for quite some time.

Darnielle has a surprising history with Tulsa. In addition to writing music as The Mountain Goats, Darnielle also writes novels. Most recently, he published his third full-length book Devil House. A story within a story, Devil House depicts a true crime writer as he works on trying to solve a double homicide committed during the ’80s. The novel even features many semi-autobiographical elements from Darnielle’s own life.

If Tulsa is anything, it’s a town that loves to read. Last year, Darnielle made a stop in Tulsa during his book launch tour thanks to the local independent bookstore Magic City Books. During his time in Tulsa, Darnielle forged strong ties with the city, later re-recording the song “Tulsa Imperative”—which he had written earlier in his career but never released officially. Eager to see him perform, many fans hugged well-loved copies of Darnielle’s books throughout the evening in hopes of getting him to sign their copies after the show.

The set started with a full band arrangement of “Make You Suffer,” a fan favorite that everyone in the audience swayed along to. The band quickly shifted from song to song as they tried to make their way through the massive 24-song setlist. Broken into distinct sections—full band, Darnielle solo, etc—the evening’s pace had a natural meandering atmosphere to it. One highlight of the first full band arrangement section included the band’s performance of “Tidal Wave.” The audience sang along with Darnielle’s lyrics about the inevitability of struggle and strife. At its core, the song says that though hard times are inevitable, they’re not the end of the world.

In the first change of pace, the band—all except Darnielle and Matt Douglas—left the stage as the duo performed a stripped version of “Dutch Orchestra Blues.” Douglas followed suit next, leaving the stage as Darnielle performed a handful of solo acoustic songs, featuring silly—in the best possible way—songs like “The Monkey Song.”

After this, the rest of the band joined Darnielle again for the remainder of the concert, but not before Darnielle hilariously mistook one of his bandmates for being on the phone when he was actually fixing his in-ear monitor. “I’m trading. Sell! Sell!” The two joked back and forth.

Before breaking into “The Diaz Brothers,” Darnielle told the audience about several different couples who had told him they used “No Children” as their wedding song. “Your marriage isn’t going to last,” Darnielle joked as everyone laughed.

Perhaps the highlight of the entire evening was the band’s emotional performance of “This Year.” The autobiographical song speaks about remaining cautiously optimistic despite everything thrown at you, which was beautifully driven home by Darnielle’s smooth vocals as he sang, “I am going to make it through this year if it kills me.”

Though there aren’t many tour dates remaining in this leg of the Spectral Tide tour, keep an eye open for further announcements from the band for other events coming up this year.

The Mountain Goats