https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvq0K4ZfHpU

“San Bernardino” feels very personal, but one excellent performance shows how even the personal can be shared.

Track: “San Bernardino”
Album: Heretic Pride (2008)

We could talk about how John Darnielle once said the characters in “San Bernardino” were some of his favorite characters. We could talk about the track placement, between two fairly explosive songs on Heretic Pride that feel much more connected, somehow, and what it means for this to be between them. We could talk about how this happens in an actual, real place, in a way that even the most specific Mountain Goats songs don’t usually happen in a real place.

That stuff is cool, but I want to talk about this specific performance of “San Bernardino” in May of 2011. I think it’s tough to adhere to John Darnielle’s sometimes-stated-sometimes-not desire that live shows are live shows and if you aren’t there, that specific one wasn’t for you. I doubt he’d feel that way about this one, but whatever the case you really owe it to yourself to see it. John Darnielle gets a few moments in and realizes the crowd is overwhelming. This happens, but the venue and the song mix perfectly here and the crowd reflects back at him so loud that he abandons the mic. He lets the song be the moment they’re all having and says, simply, “awesome.”

I write this in a time when no one has seen the Mountain Goats in person for a very long time because no one can see anyone in person right now. When that time ends, let this performance and this song be the strongest advertisement possible to see John Darnielle and company in person. They aren’t all like this, but when they are and you’re there with other people who took their own journey with “San Bernardino,” enough to even surprise the man who wrote it, you want to be in the room.