Jeff Mangum Makes a Scary Face at BAM

If you’ve been keeping tabs on the life and work of Jeff Mangum, then you probably know about how he released a couple of albums that made people feel lots of emotions, and then kind of ghosted himself, not playing many shows or doing much of anything in the public eye, until around 2010 or so. These past few months have rolled the mossy Mangum rock away from the hole in our creepy hearts, giving us a box set of everything Neutral Milk Hotel has ever done and three sold-out shows at the Brooklyn Academy of Music late last week.

I had originally planned on going to the Friday show at BAM, but gave up my tickets to a friend and his date. Here’s his firsthand account of the show, copied directly from a private Facebook message that he probably won’t be too psyched about me throwing up on the Internet, but it’s too late now.

Kelly,

So, first of all, thank you for the twentieth time. This show was maybe the best show of my life just because he came out, sat down, and played no frills—and he killed it in person like 10 years later better than on the album.

Also, there was some band before him, which was okay. They were kind of behind in time and probably don't know what war we're in or that there are black people in Connecticut. Either way, Jeff played four guitars. One that I've owned and two that I've wanted to own for years. It's strange, I never would have guessed, but the sounds call from far beyond a model number or brand name. There was a very drunk man in the balcony, who must have been that one drunk rich man in the balcony that you can't take to a show, like there is at every nice show. Also there was another drunk man that you couldn't take to a show, who was not as rich and was a few rows behind us. The man on the balcony yelled, "You're boring!" to the guy who came out and announced the show before it started, and "get the fuck off." Then in between one of Jeff's songs the man in the balcony also yelled, "make me a sandwich!" The man behind us kept piping in also, with "do something avant-garde," and a bunch of other rude silly comments. Since this is Brooklyn, everyone in the audience wasn't taking shit, and quickly started telling the man behind us to “shut the fuck up,” and “quiet down asshole.” I found this funny, because 75 percent of the audience showed up a half-hour late anyhow, but now they wanted their peace and quiet. So, as Jeff probably planned, the songs that he was playing were escalating in their intensity and darkness, and horn and saw players kept coming on stage to fill up the sound, and right before the final serious song, “Oh, Comely,” the moment of silence was filled with screams and sounds of people flopping around in a pile on top of the folding theater seats. “Oh, Comely,” continued in all of its harrowing glory and sad intensity as the Bell-Hops (or whatever they are called) were breaking up this pile of mostly ravaged women and one loud drunk man. It added perfectly to the disturbing, violently beautiful nature of the song. By the time “Oh, Comely” finally came and climaxed, the fight had been broken up, and I was crying in the elephant bellows of the brass and Jeff Mangum's high-pitched Irish train cry. Jeff did two encores and sounded fucking awesome. What a legend. After the show, my dear lady bought me a fish sandwich and a beer at the restaurant up the street. Amen.

When are you free for meatloaf?

Thanks, Timur Bardot, for that account.

I went to the show on Saturday and had a similarly intense experience, but in different and highly personal ways. Word on the street is that Ethan Hawke was at the Friday show, and it pisses me off that I missed the opportunity to maybe chance upon him standing near a bike outside of BAM, so I could be like, “Hey, that’s my bike,” BUT Stephen Colbert was in attendance at the show I went to, which was even better, but intensely awkward because skinny white boys kept bugging him to touch his hand and smile into his eyes before the show started. Once Mangum came out and started playing, the night turned into a competition to see who could squeeze tears out of their eyes the most, and who could sing/scream lyrics back to Mangum the loudest.

There wasn’t a whole lot of “acting out” on the audience’s part during this show, but a few people kept screaming out song requests (you embarrass yourself when you do this, just so you know), one guy said, “Nice green shirt!” To which Mangum responded, “Thanks, I wear it a lot,” and then some asshole from off to the side of the stage later mumbled something and Mangum said, “What? Did you just say something about an oven mitt?”

I didn’t clock how long his set was on Saturday night, but it didn’t feel nearly long enough. Colbert cried, my date cried, and I enjoyed seeing Mangum play with the Elephant 6 family. Oh, speaking of which, Julian heard what you said about being behind the times, Timur, and he’s pissed.

@wolfievibes