Matt Nathanson: Antone's: Feb. 12, 2019

Love when a surprise show can come together and be great.  A friend hit me up to go to this show, last minute, and the wife was able and willing to step outside of her comfort zone of chilling on the couch in her jammies to go with me even though neither of us knew the band.  In fact, that might be the only thing to change - as my friend Joseph noted - the guy needs a stage name.  The whole night, I couldn't recall if his name was Nate or Matt or Mark, and kept using different names for him.

The best part?  This guy is legitimately funny.  Like, laugh out loud repeatedly stuff.  He talked about going into Whole Foods, and all the beautiful people there, and then someone in the audience yelled that Central Market was better, and he went into this funny riff about the two stores and how CM has a super shitty name.  He had this gigantic spinning wheel that he used to pick songs, with his biggest hits listed in some slots, then things like Shit I Never Play or Audience Choice or Cover.  He'd spin it and then crack jokes as it buzzed around to a song.  Highly entertaining stuff.

And the music is legitimately good.  If you listen to the studio albums, there is more of the instrumentation - drum machines and snaps and whatever.  Crazy thing about this show is that is was just him and a dude in a bowtie on stage, with Nathanson playing guitar and singing, and the other guy either also playing guitar or hiding out in the back of the stage to play keyboard.  Very simple, but great lyrics and songs that were either poignantly sad/ nostalgic or very funny.  he also did a cool thing where he mixed in bits of covers in the middle of his own tunes - like a chunk of U2 or The Killers right in the midst of his own song.  He also played a lovely chunk of Paul Simon's "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes" and riffed some on how hardcore those lyrics are.  Then he called Simon a motherfucker and said this next song is not that good, going into one of his own.

Hard to believe I had never even heard of the guy before.  Spotify says he gets over a million streams a month, his show was totally sold out, he played Red Rocks last fall, and everyone in the audience sang along to the tunes.  The world is crazy full of talented musicians.  Very fun night for the wife and me.