We are giving away a pair of tickets to The Mountain Goats @ Revolution Hall on December 9. To win, comment below on this post why you’d like to attend. Winner will be drawn and emailed December 1.
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From our sponsors:
December 9, 2025 (December 8 SOLD OUT)
7pm doors, 8pm show | $60.95 | All Ages
Purchase Tickets: etix.com
Revolution Hall
1300 SE Stark St #203, Portland, OR 97214
There are Mountain Goats albums that emerge from historical deep dives, vividly rendered autobiography, liturgical exploration, and modern anthropological study. Through This Fire Across From Peter Balkan came from a dream. In May 2023, John Darnielle took to his phone in the middle of the night to document a title from somewhere in his subconscious. Because this is the Mountain Goats—a band known for avoiding the easy route, always challenging themselves to push a step beyond—Darnielle not only decided to complete this mysterious project but also to deliver it as a full-on musical that stands as the most conceptually detailed and musically elaborate project in the band’s ever-expanding catalog.
“I loved musicals when I was a kid,” Darnielle explains, “but I hadn’t really indulged in them that much until the last 7 years or so. And then we did Jenny From Thebes, which I called a ‘fake musical’ a lot… But this one actually is going for it.”
Produced by the Mountain Goats’ multi-instrumentalist Matt Douglas, who also co-wrote several songs, the record is embracing, inviting, and overflowing with melody and orchestration that extends far beyond the boundaries of their past work. “My approach is more arrangement-based,” Douglas says of his role. “I’m trying to sculpt the shape of the songs with the layering of instruments that are suiting the song best… I am sometimes a bit of a maximalist with that stuff. Sometimes more is more!”
Drawing on the cryptic phrasing of its title, Through This Fire Across From Peter Balkan tells the story of a small crew shipwrecked on a desert island, where three surviving members—an unnamed narrator, Captain Peter Balkan, and Adam—are plagued by diminishing resources and apocalyptic visions. “The first thing you learn is how strong you can be if you have to,” Darnielle sings early in the album. “The next thing you learn is how cold it can get at night.”