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03/27/2010 Matthew Good, Automatic Loveletter (Buffalo, NY @ Town Ballroom)
By Eric | April 1, 2010 4:24 pm
I chose this show over seeing the second night of OLP at the Riviera Theatre (the Spiritual Machines show) because A) SM isn’t one of my favorite OLP albums, and B) I haven’t seen Matt Good with a full band since March of 2001. (Through whatever timing and scheduling misfortunes, I just haven’t been able to see a full-on Matt Good show lately.) It felt like it was about time. To that end, I got to the Ballroom around 8, and still had to wait about a half-hour for the openers. Automatic Loveletter was an acoustic three-piece on this night (apparently they’re usually plugged in), fronted by a female lead singer. And they were quite good, even acoustically. Lead singer Juliet Simms has that slight rasp in her voice that I’m always a sucker for, and the melodies that rasp produced were very catchy. You could tell she could really belt this stuff out, and I’d be interested to see the band in their usual electric setup, as Simms seemed almost constrained by having to sit in the chair and play acoustically. After their entertaining 40 or so minutes were up, and the intermission was through, it was time for the main attraction.
Marching out to the familiar strains of “K-I-C-K-A-S-S… That’s the way we spell success!”, the band launched in to Giant, and kept the high tempo with The Future is X-Rated. Either Matt is sick of playing the older “hits” or varies the setlist a bit, because the set was very heavy on Beautiful Midnight and Hospital Music tunes, yet only playing two songs off of the new “Vancouver” disc and nothing off of Audio of Being or White Light… and only one Underdogs and Avalanche tune each. Despite all that, Matt sounded great, the band was in fine form, and the crowd was very much into the show. Almost every song had a big sing-along, particularly Hello Time Bomb and Apparitions. Hearing a lot of the Beautiful Midnight tracks really transported me back to that 2001 show (which was on that tour), and as usually happens with me, songs from the newer albums that I could take or leave in their recorded forms took on a new life, and I found a new appreciation for them (particularly the closer, Champions of Nothing). I was very happy I had the chance to see MG again, and in Buffalo with an appreciative and knowledgeable crowd.
Giant / Future is X-Rated
Champions of Nothing
Setlist: Giant, The Future Is X-Rated, Great Whales of the Sea, Hello Time Bomb, Load Me Up, Born Losers, I’m A Window, Odette, Apparitions, Weapon. Encore: A Single Explosion, Last Parade, Champions of Nothing.
Topics: Concerts | Tags: 2010, Automatic Loveletter, Buffalo, Matthew Good, Town Ballroom | Comments Off on 03/27/2010 Matthew Good, Automatic Loveletter (Buffalo, NY @ Town Ballroom)
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