I went to both shows in Oakland on Monday and Tuesday and several days later I'm still thinking about it and talking about it with my friends.

Some of the adjectives I've heard thrown around about people's experience are: religious, hallucinatory, time-traveling. And I'm interested in hearing more about what people felt and why they think they felt this way. I have my own theories which I'd like to develop as well.

So what was your experience like seeing Jeff Mangum live?

It was one of those rare performances which feels like it's about more than the performer & what's happening on the stage. He began at the end of his final (?) album, and then looped back to the beginning, building from solo voice & guitar to a marching band, then back to zero.

His only banter was to periodically mumble "now you'd better fucking sing along on this one." It felt like a return to the point when each of us had first heard this album, and everyone in the room was a part of it.

I completely agree with the statement "it felt like a return to the point where each of us had first heard this album." Interestingly, almost everyone heard the albums after Mangum was already on hiatus. So that initial experience was with a ghost.

At one point in the show, someone yelled out "We missed you Jeff!" But most people never even knew him the first time. It's really that older version of ourselves we were missing.

That's true. Incidentally, I've had "Ghost" stuck in my head ever since the show ended. rd.io

To me, the show provides a surprising and happy twist in the story. The album is about something precious and fragile in the past that's been lost, but you wish you could save it. It makes me think of Jeff creating something great and then disappearing, seemingly lost. Now he's back, what a great development. It fits the theme.

Plus, the transition from Ghost to the untitled instrumental was great.

I sent this to Matt previously but I actually had the thought driving home, "Maybe he disappeared for 10 years just so that when he emerged and performed again that it would have this particular effect on the audience."

As in, maybe his original artistic intention was this intense, hallucinatory, time traveling effect of hearing live music that was both super personally meaningful to you and presumably lost for ever.