Sunday, October 12, 2008

Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel SINGS in NYC


Jeff Mangum joins Elephant 6 pals Elf Power on the beautiful The Arrow Flies Close from their 1997 album When the Red King Comes (he walks onstage at the 2:00 mark to cheers and whoops).

Oh man, I just KNEW this was gonna happen at this Knitting Factory show, I shoulda been there. Maybe Mangum is finally coming out of his self-imposed exile from public view and maybe one day he'll even sing a NMH song again, wouldn't that be something? Here's how one fan in attendance described it (courtesy of brooklynvegan):
Jeff Mangum walked onstage 3 times last night at the amazing Elephant 6 collective show -- first just for the chorus of a song, about halfway through, then again for just a chorus, and finally at the last song ("The Opera House" by Olivia Tremor Control, before the encores) when he went NUTS and sang for the whole song. He was jumping around and sort of tackled Scott Spillane halfway through and put him in a headlock. He had the most intense look in his eyes the whole time he was on stage. Everyone chanted "Jeff Jeff Jeff", and someone was yelling for songs from Aeroplane ("anything from that album!!! you have to!!") but all we got from that album was Julian Koster and Scott Spillane doing a stripped-down, unpracticed version of The Fool, "dedicated to a friend", which Julian said they hadn't practiced in years. I'm sure you'll get more emails about it -- it was incredible.
I'm very encouraged by this! C'mon Jeff, ten years is long enough, please come back.

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