There are music bands, and then there are lyrics bands, and the Mountain Goats are definitely the latter. Not that the music's not fine—John Darnielle knows how to arrrange some chord changes, and his backing band (including Superchunk/Scharpling& Wurster alum Jon Wurster) are on point, providing foundation and emphasis and never getting in the way—but it's all about the man's words, his impassioned delivery thereof (voice high and straining and thin, head shaking furiously), and, for the super-geeks, his between song dissections of their meanings, origins, and interpretations. You can tell it's a lyrics act because some of the most vocal fans were applauding loudest not for the band istelf or for songs or even choruses, but for individual lines. When Darnielle sang, "Of the several things that you have to do today/You're gonna regret one," on the song "Sign of the Crow (Part 2)," one lone voice in the crowd shouted, "Yeah!" with audible conviction. When Darnielle sang the chorus, "Oh, what do I do/without you," on "Woke Up New," peals of sympathetic howls went through the crowd. These were lyrics people here, and the Mountain Goats have enough super-resonant lyrical moments to keep such folks cheering all night.

About those between song dissections: Darnielle talking about his work was like VH1 Storytellers as Micro Machines commercial, Darnielle all nervous excitement, dropping bon mots waaaay faster than I could possibly jot them all down for posterity. Introducing the oddly upbeat "Romans 10:9," off latest album The Life of the World to Come, Darnielle delivered "an extended bitchy harangue" about how "artists, or pretenders to the title" read too much of their own press, about how he was writing this song depressed in a Denver hotel room, how its about a guy who's about to lose his shit because he's stopped taking his medication, because he's trying, in the parlance of recovery culture, to "fake it until he makes it," and how the press has frequently and mistakenly labeled the song as "hopeful"—I won't lie, I went back through this review right then to make sure I hadn't used that word (I didn't).

Introducing "Orange Ball of Peace," a triumphant-sounding song about arson, Darnielle said, "This is a song about a guy's ambitions—everyone's gotta have dreams, even when those dreams will surely result in damage." Introducing "Thank You Mario but Our Princess is in Another Castle," he did an amazing monologue about the genuine emotional resonance of Super Mario Brothers, explaining the situation with his hands, "the dragon's like this [makes big space with hands] and I'm like this [makes smaller space], and I don't even have the hammer that I had in Donkey Kong...but I defeat the evil dragon, and now I will see the woman that I love and have like 2 second of bliss, but instead it's just this little guy in a funny hat, but you're not mad, because he's your friend." Introducing "Hebrews 11:40" ("whether by faith or by the sword/I'm gonna be restored") he said, "This is a funny way for me to start a sentence, but, not to get too emo with you, this is a song about body image" (sword = plastic surgery?). He went off on other curtain-pulling tangents, talking about chord changes and soundscans, but again I couldn't quite take it all down. At one point, he had the band's bassist introduce a song, and the difference is style—"Um, it starts in C, it's kind of fast"—is the source for some more funny riffing from the frontman.

But as entertaining as the banter was, the songs were just stunning. Darnielle played solo, sitting at the piano, for a few songs. Final Fantasy's Owen Pallet joined him for "1 John 4:16" and "Going to Bristol" and then a couple more with the full band. Highlights included: Darnielle singing "Love Love Love," at a barely audible mumbling whisper, the band holding back, everyone except the inevitable two oblivious jerks in the bar totally hushed and reverent; the totally chilling "Hast Thou Considered the Tetrapod?" (so many skin-tingling moments a this show); the band's righteously inflamed rendition of "Against Pollution," during which Darnielle ad-libbed a little "yes!" inspired by some response in the audience; and of course the rousing set closer "This Year," for which Darnielle, off the mic, led the crowd in singing the first couple lines.

For their first encore, the band played Life of the World to Come closer "Ezekial 7 and the Permanent Efficacy of Grace" followed by "No Children," which the crowd had been loudly requesting all night. During the latter song, a kid ran onstage from the wings, maybe grabbed something off the bass player's amp, and then jumped into the crowd. Darnielle was thrilled. "Ladies and gentlemen, our first ever stage diver! That's exactly like me at an indie rock show: 'These people don't know how to catch me, I'll just jump onto the floor.'" He went on to say that he thought god sent him to this planet to tell people who haven't moshed to mosh, and that he supported the introduction of a Constitutional amendment protecting the right to mosh. The next song was the awesome "Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton," for which Darnielle altered the lyrics to "they moshed twice a week in Jeff's bedroom," and when the crowd dutifully started a funny, slow-motion, swaying side-to-side mosh pit, Darnielle told them, "I am in love with you right now." (It would be impossible to top that with a second encore, but the crowd demanded it, so the band came back out and played "See America Right.")

I don't know why I wasn't expecting an act with an album titled He Poos Clouds to be funny—possibly all the baroque orchestral arrangements and my only passing knowledge of his song catalog got it in my head that this was strictly "serious" music—but Final Fantasy's Owen Pallett was pretty hammy and hilarious. I came into his set late, just in time to catch some joke about hurting his back hauling his piano (a Nord keyboard no bigger than guitar) down four flights of stairs. To introduce his next song, he shouted, "there's download cards in the back..you'll be the first people in the world to hear this song. It's true. Pay attention, because it's gonna get lots of play on your iTunes...or WinAmp—if you're not a fascist!" He introduced the act's last song as "a song by Theodore Adorno called 'Independence is No Solution for Modern Babies.'" There was a lyric about how "babies want to have publicists/because better babies make best-of lists," and the whole songs culminated with the declaration that "babies just wanna dance" followed by a litany of all the Brooklyn neighborhoods they'd wanna dance in (Williamsburg, Green Point, etc). Throughout, Pallet, who had sort of lopsided hair and was wearing what locked like some kind of artful smock, sang in a clear, almost creamy voice and picked out delicate pizzicato melodies and slow-bowed notes on his violin while his accompanist provided little bits of percussion or other additional instrumentation. As Darnielle said of him during their duet later in the night, when noting that he himself could barely play a song's chord changes when he first wrote it, "Now I've got this violinist, he went to school for this sort of thing."