He'd been away so long that at the end they would not let him leave.

From his previous two shows, we knew that Jeff Mangum was playing an hour set, then coming back for a 20-minute encore. When he left the stage after that, I headed for the exit.

Back in late April, we told you about Neutral Milk Hotel/Music Tapes dude Julian Koster's quest to help the Paragon Carousel in Hull, Massachusetts win a grant from American Express to help it stay open and enrich the lives of youths throughout New England - and got an update on Jeff Mangum to boot. Now, the Patriot Ledger is reporting that the effort was a success!

Lord knows what happens to this embed after the lease runs out at Pitchfork's "One Week Only," but for the time being, we highly urge you to check out a show that Neutral Milk Hotel fans will recognize as Mangum's finest existing official bootleg. Live at Jittery Joe's, shot by indie filmmaker Lance Bangs (hubby of Sleater-Kinney's Corin Tucker), includes solo renditions of NMH classics like "Two Headed Boy," "Oh Comely," and "Gardenhead," as well as an oddball cover (the Phil Spector oldie "I Love How You Love Me"), the unreleased "I Will Bury You In Time," and our favorite NMH obscurity -- the children's song "I Am An Engine."