An Evening with The Mountain Goats and Molly Tuttle: Recap

Book a trio of vivacious storytellers and songwriters in a historic, subterranean venue in midtown Manhattan — and rare magic is bound to happen. That was the brief of WFUV's "An Evening with The Mountain Goats and Molly Tuttle" at Sony Hall on Tuesday night — with Low Cut Connie's Adam Weiner as the pre-show VIP party ringmaster. Their vivid performances showed just what FUV's benefit concerts do best: celebrate a communal love of music of all genres.

Sony Hall is a venue made for great raconteurs. It first opened in 1928 as The Paramount Hotel's grill room (eventually busted for breaking some prohibition laws), and was relaunched in 1938 as Billy Rose's Diamond Horseshoe, which guaranteed plenty of nightclub shenanigans. The Mountain Goats' John Darnielle and Matt Douglas (doing a rare duo performance, more on that in a bit), Tuttle, and Weiner took advantage of the nearly 100-year-old setting to talk about their own scrappy and sentimental memories, from fathers to frozen water pipes.

Next year, Adam Weiner celebrates his 15th year of exhilarating showmanship, keyboard acrobatics and boogie-woogie chops as Low Cut Connie. Ushered to the stage by "Cavalcade" host (and dedicated  LCC fan) Paul Cavalconte, Weiner delivered the consummate set of Philadelphia freedom and soulful joy for the VIP private party crowd.

Kicking things off with the swaggering stomp of Low Cut Connie's "One Night Stand," Weiner built a deft set of his own New York and City of Brotherly Love history. He recalled his very first gig as a piano player for a drag karaoke bar a couple of blocks from Sony Hall and the affectionate song that spilled from that gig ("Shake It, Little Tina"), for his friend Michael, a Tina Turner-reverent drag queen.

Philly soul and rockabilly are never far from Weiner's heart, acknowledged with a wistfully pretty cover of The Spinners' "I'll Be There" and the posthumous Roy Orbison hit, "You Got It." As Weiner's forever champion, Cavalconte earned a dedication too, with Jimmy Cliff's "The Harder They Come," and the whole of FUV and its listeners were given lots of love via Low Cut Connie originals, including "Boozophilia" and "Revolution Rock and Roll."

"Boys and girls, we need each other more than ever," Weiner said near set's end, addressing the federal cutbacks to public broadcasting and more. "Love each other a little bit more. Gives me hope for WFUV, public radio, and the future. WFUV will continue to thrive."

Fresh off of learning about her two 2026 Grammy nominations this week, including Americana album of the year for the new So Long Little Miss Sunshine, Molly Tuttle (already a bluegrass Grammy winner in 2023 and 2024) was in good spirits, despite wrangling with flight cancellation hell on her way to New York. She was introduced onstage by midday host Alisa Ali, who'd recently interviewed Tuttle for her debut FUV Live session earlier this year.

With two acoustic instruments in tow, Tuttle showed everyone just why she's one of this country's foremost bluegrass guitarists. Whether flatpicking or showing off her clawhammer technique with open tuning ("manicure destroyer," she called it, laughing), Tuttle's mastery of the guitar is wondrous, her hands galloping across the body and fretboard of her custom Martin with velocity and precision. Whether transforming The Rolling Stones "She's a Rainbow" into her own radiant statement of self or digging deep into murder ballad territory with "Rosalee," from the new album, Tuttle's clear voice and fierce mastery of the guitar is a riveting dialogue of ardor and strength,

She spoke tenderly of her dad, a bluegrass player who taught her the craft. Growing up in suburban Palo Alto, California, she became a zealous expert on a style of music saturated in the Blue Ridge misty mountains and front-porch hootenanny lore of Appalachia. Since it was Veterans Day evening, "Dooley's Farm" from Tuttle and the Golden Highway's Crooked Tree landed with even more of a punch.

Old Dooley was raised Carolina
Got his schoolin' out in Vietnam
Tucks his hair up in a Pioneer seed cap
When he's bringing his cash crop in
Now everybody said he's just a simpleton farmer
Plow a hundred acres out in Sugar Grove
Smilin' at you from an IH tractor
But there's a secret down in every row

Tuttle, who beamed as the crowd cheered on her fiery solos, sent out her thanks to WFUV DJs for supporting her Grammy-nominated single "That's Gonna Leave a Mark" from So Long Little Miss Sunshine, an album that broaches more country and pop. "It's very exciting," she said, with another dazzling rainbow of a smile, of her new Grammy nominations. Following the tour de force of City of Gold's "San Joaquin," Tuttle and her acoustic guitars departed to thunderous applause, a standing ovation, and a room of very impressed new (and longtime) fans.

John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats acquiesces that he's a (very) garrulous guy ("I'm descended from a long line of guys who talk too much"). However, given the storytelling vibe that steered "An Evening with The Mountain Goats and Molly Tuttle," Darnielle's long-and-winding road of making his circuitous way to a song was perfect on this frigidly cold November night, when a loquaciously cozy set is just what's needed.

Darnielle and multi-instrumentalist Matt Douglas hadn't done a stripped-back duo show in about 18 months and their lack of rehearsal — by their own confession — became a charming foil to their set. Introduced to the Sony Hall stage by host and director of music programming Russ Borris, the musicians delighted in their freewheeling camaraderie. (Darnielle scribbled his set list down on a tiny pad of paper in his hotel about an hour before the gig, which he later crumpled and then tossed to folks in the front row.)

Notably, The Mountain Goats had just released a new album on Friday called Through This Fire Across from Peter Balkan, a title that Darnielle says arrived in a dream. Two songs from the album — "Rocks in the Pockets" (only the third time it was played live in concert) and "Broken to Begin With" — made the set, and Darnielle talked about the shipwreck story that sailed forth from his title, determined to be "cryptic, but not obscure."

In his patter, Darnielle made jump cuts between ideas and timelines, beat by beat. He brought the audience from the remote town of Colo, Iowa ("I lived at a train intersection"), where he battled burst pipes and mice in a remote house, taking a hard left turn to the drug-addled brilliance of outlaw country musicians like Merle Haggard ("a reactionary who doesn't want to be friends with other reactionaries") before segueing to Waylon Jennings. The final destination was "Waylon Jennings Live!" from 2019's In League with Dragons, delivered with gusto and plenty of head wagging from Darnielle. 

As Douglas flipped between electric guitar, tenor sax, piano and keyboards (the latter especially pretty on  2006's "Song for Lonely Giants), Darnielle peppered his intros with tales of the late Ozzy Osbourne ("Song for Black Sabbath's Second North American Tour"), the challenges of obtaining life insurance ("Lakeside View Apartment Suite"), and Stan Ridgeway of Wall of Voodoo ("Bones Don't Rust"). In contrast to Tuttle's affectionate asides about her dad, Darnielle spoke somberly about his complicated relationship with his late stepfather, an abusive man who still gave Darnielle an entry into things he grew to love, like Mexican wrestling ("Southwestern Territory").

Darnielle and Douglas ended their set with "No Children" from 2002's Tallahasee, the kind of song that Darnielle said his fans expected from him: about "divorce or child abuse." With the final lyrical missive of "No Children" — Darnielle yelping "I hope we both die" — the Mountain Goats departed, like errant soothsayers in a mythic American tale.

"An Evening with The Mountain Goats and Molly Tuttle," which sold out its general admission tickets in just five days, heralds a new chapter of FUV events. Stay tuned and look and listen for highlights and videos of the concert later this autumn. You can find more coverage via Instagram  and check out FUV's Flickr for Gus Philippas's photographs of the night.