Modest Mouse - The Golden Casket (June 25, 2021) • Page 18

Anyone interested in (or know anyone interested in) a ticket to Philly?

 

Saw them in Dallas night. It ruled. Need them to do tours of every album now.

 

Had to sell my ticket to Philly, but I'm making up for it by seeing Avatar Thursday afternoon lmao

 

I don’t even know what I would do with it if I was gifted a whole ass casket lmao

 

I’d sleep in it

 

Hahaha. Imagine having guests over.

“well, goodnight all. See ya tomorrow”

*shuts coffin lid*

 

Ticked Modest Mouse off the bucket list last week. Amazing show. I had always heard they could be hit or miss depending on sobriety levels. And with the very recent passing of Jeremiah I would certainly have forgiven them for not being at their best.

I was kinda blown away. Isaac was unreal. So much presence, energy and focus.

I was pleasantly surprised by the crowd too. Adelaide can be really disappointing sometimes but the venue was packed. It's amazing what one big hit can do for you even after almost 20 years. The Good News and We Were Dead songs got the best reactions for sure.

But this was really a show for the (few) die-hards. They opened with Dark Centre of the Universe and also brought out Perfect Disguise. New tracks were limited to Acid Trip, Lace Your Shoes and Back To The Middle. Nothing from Strangers To Ourselves.

I'll get to the more obscure choices but first, this seems like the right time to point out that Isaac never mentioned Jeremiah, at least not directly. He did speak briefly about how life is short and people pass but the happiness outweighs the sadness in life, because he knows more new people than he knows people who have died. (He put it more eloquently than I am paraphrasing here.) Then he played Lace Your Shoes which I thought was perfect.

So by the midway point we got King Rat. I guess it's popular on YouTube but not too many seemed to know it. Didn't matter. What a gargantuan tune. Soon after we got Night On The Sun. Then Spitting Venom. Then a 10 minute break. Then the encore started with Truckers Atlas. (Of the three, Venom was the most widely known.)

I had the biggest smile on my face. Sure people may have been here just for Float On and Dashboard. Sure there were other crowd pleasers left on the table - Dramamine, Trailer Trash, 3rd Planet, Missed the Boat, Little Motel. But they did not care. They gave the crowd three 10 minute songs in a row, with a long gap in between. (Encore chants started and died down at least half a dozen times.)

After throwing one final bone in the form of Gravity Rides Everything, the set closed with a blistering Shit Luck.

For my long time fandom, I never really checked their set lists or watched live recordings. Maybe this kind of set list is standard for them. All I know is it made me super stoked to see them just go for it, fully engaged. I think I was happier to hear EP tracks and non-singles than I'd have been with a "greatest hits" even though most of those hits are among my favourite songs ever made. They are doing what they want and it shows in the passion they still display.

 

King Rat into Night on the Sun mighta destroyed me outright. damn that's a setlist

 

Modest Mouse Setlist at Thebarton Theatre, Adelaide

So good. I still smile thinking about when I realised they were playing three straight epics. I half expected them to just keep it going with Stars Are Projectors.

Fire It Up and Bukowski definitely had more people excited and singing along than even more popular older songs such as Gravity Rides Everything. For maximum crowd pleasing they could start looking to not singles from that era (would love to one day see them play March Into The Sea or Parting of the Sensory).

I imagine LCW and Strangers may have been under representated because they recently toured both albums.

 

This album is really fucking good.

 

Yeah, been meaning to spin my vinyl this week

 

Yeha I feel like all "new" Modest Mouse gets a bad rap from a lot of old school fans...but I have to say every album they have put out overall is great especially with the lyrical content

 

It seems like the biggest criticism of Strangers to Ourselves is that it doesn't try anything new after an eight year gestation period, but I think that album is good for simply being the band doing what they do best. This one, on the other hand, does try some new things (and lyrical themes), particularly in the percussion and production department

 

The songs and production on Strangers To Ourselves are great, and that's why I like it. The Golden Casket tries more new things, but the songs aren't as good, so I like it less.

 

I used to be a huge MM fan, but STO and GC were 2 albums I didn't enjoy or ever revisit. I saw them live for like the 8th time last summer and still enjoyed their older stuff. Thinking about seeing them again this summer just because they are with the pixies. I haven't seen them live in over a decade.

 

I liked TGC more than STO when it first dropped, but I don’t return to either much nowadays. Still spinning everything up to We Were Dead pretty often though.

 

Ugly Casanova deserves more love, could be a top three Brock project some days

 

just give me the Modest Mouse Big Boi collab from over a decade ago.

 

Yeah for real

 

so dumb that never surfaced

 

Uhhhh the Spotify version of Sharpen Your Teeth has four bonus tracks I've never heard???

 

What the fuck

(I think I've heard all of those labeled as either Modest Mouse or Ugly Casanova demos, but it's probably been 10-15 years)

 

Modest Mouse are in a category for me where I'll like basically anything they put out but I have no idea how they could blow me away like they did 15-20 years ago.
Whenever I listen back to their last couple of albums I think "yeah this is great". But it's definitely a different feeling compared with their 97-07 run.

 

At this point I prefer TGC to STO