encore:

thanks scott, brett and sam.

"i'm jim morrison, i'm dead" and "two rights make one wrong" were both abandoned due to technical difficulties.
'christmas steps' was added to replace the two abandoned tracks.

support from fuck buttons

variety playhouse

reviews/comments

from scott deplonty:

mogwai played to a near-capacity crowd at the variety playhouse in the little five points neighborhood of atlanta. this is the second time that i have seen them there. two words, i think, sum up their performance: melancholy and fury.

'we're no here' was fantastic. there were some technical difficulties, spurring stuart to comment at one point that we were getting a "peak behind the scenes." i was happy that i finally got to hear "like herod" live. as usual, the sound was great, both loud and very, very clear. all in all, the glaswegians put on a very good show.

from sam hunt:

"jim morrison" was listed between "helicon 1" and "scotland's shame," but abandoned. "2 rights" was listed between "tracy" and "like herod," but they played "xmas steps" instead, which was not listed on the actual setlist. "2 rights" was abandoned due to laptop difficulties.

it was a 4-hour drive from unc asheville to atlanta yesterday. i wrote in a lengthy request for "my father my king" to mogwai's website, but to no avail. "we're no here" was a good encore, but not nearly long enough. the d-bag sound guys turned off the noise after a few minutes, when it's usually a 13+ minute song.

the setlist was amazing despite the fact that "jim morrison" and "2 rights" were deleted. "xmas steps" is always a welcome addition, though, and it probably sounded better than "2 rights" would have right before the dark "like herod." this was only my second mogwai show, and it was so much better and louder than it was 2 years ago in asheville. deafening, in fact. i was standing in the very middle, right infront of barry's marshall stack, which was loud as shit. the bass was turned facing right at me too, and for the entirety of "scotland's shame" and "like herod," i thought my ears were in serious jeopardy!

highlights were "like herod" and "batcat," a perfect ending to the main set. "herod" was unbelievable, droning on and on until smashing right into the intro to "batcat." oh my gawd. other highlights were "tracy," which was much longer than it was on the beast tour, "helicon 1" and "xmas steps." al the new stuff sounded fantastic, too...very fitting

my only gripe was "hunted by a freak," which i think the band needs to toss into the trash. they play it at every show and it's just lame compared to the intensity of the rest of their songs. it sorta blew into one ear and out the other. "kids will be skeletons," "stop coming to my house," and "i know you are" are all better short songs than "hunted," in my opinion. but the crowd seemed to love it as usual. "summer" picked things back up, though, and it was louder than i had ever imagined.

the band was in great spirits despite the technical difficulties unlike they were in asheville 2 years ago. barry yelled in asheville, "it's not our fault, all our shit works!" and stuart was visibly angry at the orange peel venue for being shitty.

now i get to wait for all tomorrow's parties new york, where i'll be ready for countless other great bands...but mogwai is still #1!! i really hope "2 rights" works out in ny. unreal rock show last night, 'gwais. keep the noise a comin' and come to north carolina next tour!

from trevor john:

i noticed that christmas steps is not listed on the setlist, it most definitely was played, as it was one of my highlights of the evening (having been a long time favorite of mine). it was one of the last songs of the main set. it came either right before or right after two rights make one wrong, if i'm not mistaken.

it was a fantastic show. my second time seeing them, but it felt like the first since the first time was one of the short sets at curiosa. i've held out on not listening to the album leak, so it was cool to hear the new songs live for the first time (i liked them all quite a bit as well). summer, hunted by a freak, helicon 1, friend of the night, christmas steps, and we're no here were highlights for me. fantastic show, cool venue, and a good crowd. can't wait to see them again.

http://www.thewestgeorgian.com/.../Mogwai.At.The.Variety.Playhouse

http://www.evilsponge.org/concert/Mogwai__15Sep08.htm

mogwai's us tour diary

from mogwai.co.uk:

atlanta = my good friend henry from chunklet and therefore whirlyball, the sport of champions. henry comes over to the hotel to say hi and to organise dinner at the dreamland bbq and then we'll go onto the whirlyball game straight afterwards. instead of staying in the hotel (where the receptionist looked puzzled when i said that glasgow is in scotland and he said “we don’t get many scottish people here”) henry kindly offers me a room at chez chunklet and i snap up the offer. it gets to 6 o’clock and we head over to roswell, home of georgia’s whirlyball arena. deerhunter offered us their van to take some of us over so a big thankyou to them. we arrive at the bbq place to hungry team chunklet who have already ordered some of the tastiest food ever cooked. we quickly sit down and stuff our faces. i am not drinking any alcohol tonight because i want to beat team chunklet for once at whirlyball. this will not transpire in the end but i did score 7 goals out of all the games i played which is 7 more than last time yet still not good enough to get out of a 32-6 humping by henry and his good for nothing cohorts. ozzie is quite a sight to see playing whirlyball. he doesn’t look where he is going and just smiles and laughs and crashes a lot much to the amusement of ally and i. john looks in extreme pain at one point and in the next few days we will witness a bruise on his leg that increasingly looks like a failed molestation by one angry bruce banner. anyway, a great night was had by all and it was time for me to go home and meet henry’s amazing labradoodle dogs, david lee roth (a mere puppy really) and bun e. carlos , watch them be total spongos for an hour and watch some more metalocalypse. then it’s off to bed but dave lee roth is constipated and keeps henry, his wife sarah and myself up to the wee hours so it’s time for the anti-dog earplugs to go in. next morning henry goes to the gym and i go for a 30 minute super-swim which will completely ruin my legs for the next 5 days i reckon. afterwards we meet fuck buttons and dominic for a fantastic breakfast that henry insisted on having in his favourite place. it didn’t disappoint. before soundcheck, fb’s, dominic and i are lucky enough to be taken to the adult swim hq in downtown atlanta where we meet terry (a whirlyball sage) who works there. we are shown an un-aired and rough episode of aqua teen force which is a small coup and then given a tour and some goodies from the station. the owner comes out and meets us and says he is a fan of the band which is pretty cool really. after this it’s time to soundcheck. yip. sounds just fine. i find some rather large dead cockroaches in the dressing room which give me the fear and i even see a little baby one crawling up the fridge which is awesome. so tonight, henry is going to (as usual) introduce us and this time it’s as a german journalist traveling around the usa with mogvai. it’s very funny and should be up on youtube soon enough. the concert didn’t go as well however. the computers had a bit of a fit due to the heat and went all dizzy on us so we couldn’t play some songs. no matter though, there’s always the next album to tour. after the show it’s a small soire with henry et al and then a bus ride to richmond, virginia.