The Mountain Goats: Songs You Want to Hear
Words by Liz Wyatt
Photographs by Steve Satzberg
The Mountain Goats started off their 2026 tour promoting their 24th album Days at The Fillmore in Silver Spring.
Days, not actually due out until Aug 7, is meant as a follow-up to the November 2025 album Through This Fire Across From Peter Balham. The band have released one single, “Charlie Sheen Reaches Out To The Feds,” inspired by the urban legend of Tiger Blood Charlie watching a gore film thinking it must be real, not special effects, and calling the FBI. And so, spoiler alert, they played none of the new songs except that readily available single.
John Darnielle, the long standing originator of an ever-evolving band, is playing this year with Matt Douglas, Jon Wurster, Ron Jost, Mikaela Davis, and Janis Siegal — and so many of those players were in the band at The Fillmore Silver Spring on May 15.
Darnielle, in the early years, recorded with lo-fi boombox tapes, adding a static background grunge to his music. Fast forward to Days, which is a nostalgic reflection of how the days have been stacking one atop the other since the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s.
Days tracklist:
01 Song for Layne Staley
02 Charlie Sheen reaches out to the Feds
03 Shallow Grave
04 Candlebox
05 Annie Haslam Imperial Phase
06 Crying of Eddie Nash’s Grave
07 Days
08 Best Hard Rock Albums of 2013
09 Going to Fennario
10 Woodstock
11 Hidden Majesty of Later Venom Albums
12 Last Days
The first song for the night grew from the tones vibrating in our chests while beams of lights in the foggy darkness were shining on us all. Recognizing the song, we were clapping a beat as John started on guitar singing a robust “Waiting for the armies of the lord…even if they never come… in the world but not of it.” The crowd went wild with every refrain of “waiting for the armies of the lord.” John stayed on guitar singing “…next thing you can learn is how small you can get…. The next thing you learn is how cold it can get at night…”.
Watch the official visualizer for “Armies of the Lord” by The Mountain Goats on YouTube:
Then, an uptempo number about 16 people on a fishing boat, three are shipwrecked, one hits his head and prophesies about the end of the world and the other two go along, “wild as the rain in the storm, be your own boss for the summer, free as the wind on the ocean”.
This was where John realized that as the first performance of this tour, some of these songs hadn’t been played live together yet. He was nervous! So charming, He noted the drug use in Portland and said, “I hope I don’t have the drug problem that guy does…”, then sang “g-d damn these vampires for what they’ve done to me.”
In a continuation of the warm sharing, John insisted these were all songs with major chords but don’t be fooled! He said he wrote the next one while sitting at the table entertaining his baby. “I’m gonna make it through this year if it kills me…” The audience was jumping up and down with the upbeat major chords, shouting along, “In Jerusalem next year, I’m gonna make it there this year if it kills me.”
What a tightly packed sold-out performance for the first show of the tour. “I hate bands who won’t play the songs their fans wanna hear,” John said to roars as fans heard their favorite song coming on again and again. What a giant roaring sing along that was.
True to form, they did not play anything from the new album except the already released “Charlie Sheen Reaches out to the Feds.” Frankly we all had checked it out and sang along to that one too. No new songs for the true fan, just a fun sing along dance off with friends here at The Fillmore.
Here are some photos of The Mountain Goats performing live at The Fillmore Silver Spring on May 15, 2026. All pictures copyright and courtesy of Steve Satzberg.
