No amount of videos you’ve seen or tracks you’ve heard can really prepare you for a Mountain Man show. In this day and age where you can achieve near digital perfection in the studio, I’m still convinced that no recording will ever do them justice and that in order to truly experience what these three girls from Vermont are all about, you have to see them sing in person. Even the phrase “breathtakingly beautiful” seems to fall incredibly short when trying to describe their sound. Last night, I had a chance to witness them play a twelve song set at the acoustically perfect Reed College Chapel, and it was probably the most spiritual experience I’ve had in quite a while.
After braving through a sample-crazy electro soloist, a singer / songwriter acoustic performance, and a full band arrangement — an interesting collection of Reed College musicians — the time finally arrived for Molly, Amelia, and Alex to take the stage. Holding only a single acoustic guitar (makes it easy to pack their green sedan and drive cross country on a whim), their mostly a cappella set was about as simple of a performance instrument-wise I’ve ever seen. In fact, the group noted how this was the first time ever they’ve performed with a microphone on stage; quite a feat for it being 2010, not 1910.
And their timelessness is one of the best qualities of their music. If it wasn’t for the Appalachian-infused vocals of the group that automatically makes you think of past greats like Cousin Emmy (popular from the 20s-50s), you wouldn’t be able to pinpoint even the century this music belongs to. I mean, small groups of singers huddled together forming beautiful harmonies is one of the oldest arrangements in the books and can probably be traced back to the dawn of humankind.
Although the gravity of their music is intense, during breaks they would counter their emotionally draining performance with lighthearted banter. The most fun conversation they had was when Molly divulged an arrangement she had with her then boyfriend that, if given the opportunity, they would be OK with each other kissing Connor Oberst. Not surprisingly, this spun into a lengthy talk about their first concerts they attended with Amelia proudly declaring it was 98 degrees, even mimicking their choreographed dance moves to the t. Maybe I just have this thing about elevating musicians to higher tiers of humanity, but it’s always refreshing to see down-to-earth personalities from performers.
As anyone who has seen them live can attest to, you really need near silence to fully appreciate their music. Although I berate the arms-crossed crowd of Portland concert goers almost every live show I go to, at the very least I can say it made for good practice for this performance. With the crowd frozen on the front pews and seated attentively on the ground in front of the stage, it was so still that I felt guilty when my stomach started growling — making it impossible to even consider taking photos of the show with my loud ass shutter sound.
Opening with the track “Honeybee” with their hands clasped to each other, it was amazing to see the three only needing to hit the first note a couple of times as warm-up before going into a jaw-dropping rendition of the track, something reminiscent of the sound check I saw Neko Case do almost a year. Since the only recording I have of theirs is composed of six songs, naturally there were some surprises (at least for me) as well as some covers thrown into the mix. Regardless of how unfamiliar some of the newer songs might have been, you wouldn’t have known the difference as every track was spot-on. It didn’t matter if it was the recently-premiered “Babylon” or the Jana Hunter cover song they closed with (which Amelia told me was “the first song we learned as a band”), everything was about as picture perfect as you could get. Here is a rough setlist from the evening:
- Honeybee
- Babylon
- Bathtub
- How I’m Doing Hey Hey (Mills Brothers Cover)
- Dog Song
- Mouthwings
- Seewee Seewee
- Animal Tracks
- White Heron
- ??? (“New Track” featuring a lot of heavy breathing)
- Green Grass (Tom Waits Cover)
- The Earth Has No Skin (Jana Hunter Cover)
I haven’t seen the “How I’m Doing Hey Hey” track anywhere online, so I went ahead and uploaded a “video” of their performance of it tonight (more like audio because the lighting was bad and my camera sucks majorly):
It was cool because the Portland crowd pitched in some improvised snapping that went along with the music and the girls looked like they were having a great time performing it on stage.
Well that’s it for last night’s performance. All I can say is that if you get a chance to see them live, do yourself a favor and go. Trust me, you won’t be disappointed.
At the show, I got a copy of their limited edition self-titled CD-R (with one-of-a-kind handmade sleeve) that I’ll be giving away. I’m pretty sure this is a tour-only release, as it contains eight tracks as opposed to the six songs on their past release (“Loon Song” and “Buffalo” are the two additions). Anyways, if you won’t get an opportunity to catch them live or if you can’t wait for their almost-ready Underwater Peoples’s 10” to drop, go ahead and retweet this (or if you don’t have twitter, drop a comment) and I’ll pick a winner at random in the coming days (US residents only)!
EDIT:: Contest is CLOSED!
