Sunday, February 10, 2019

I want to roll around the darkness, til the darkness goes away

Since moving to Florida, I’ve been missing out on one of my favourite things - music therapy.

It was so much easier to get in the car and drive the four hours to Albany every couple of weeks when I needed my fix. I definitely don’t have that here… not even working at the arena could cure my need for live music. Mostly, because I couldn’t connect to the music. I saw three concerts the entire time I worked at the arena… and bands that can fill an arena generally aren’t my thing any more.

Give me the bands no one’s ever heard of. Give me the bands that aren’t on the radio twenty-four-seven-three-sixty-five.

Enter Matt. We’ve seen him twice in the past year, once in Pompano and yesterday in Orlando. He’s definitely a one-hit wonder, but his live shows are something else. When he’s allowed to truly be himself on stage, it’s amazing. Last night was definitely no exception.

We paid for the meet and greet, which is something I normally don’t do, but it was worth it for the three extra songs we got from the soundcheck.

He also brought his song wheel. Motherfucker, did that make the night even better. Spinning and hoping that it landed on something he actually wanted to play - it was the best mix of drama and comedy. (“The wheel is like democracy - you get what you don’t want”). The wheel fucked him so bad at one point, that he moved the wheel to the song he actually wanted to play. (“You drink the beer, the beer doesn’t drink you.”

Other bits that I made note of:

Nobody can fuck up a song like Matt Nathanson.

We’re hear to see Mike Nickerson.

No one wants to hear an angry folk guy do metal.

And I can’t forget his story about the hippie chick that LICKED HIS ELBOW. (I suppose, in her defence, she DID ask him to bed, and she DID ask him if he wanted to try something…) The best part of that entire story was when he looked at the fourteen year old girl standing at the barrier and told her to close her fucking ears. He loves making a big deal out of kids in the audience, and then he forgets they’re there and it can get pretty raunchy.

He also told the story about how his daughter has an entire pintrest board dedicated to him, and also how she busts out bits from “Run”. I cannot imagine hearing an eight year old sing “I wanna watch you undress”...

I’m still kind of reeling from the events of late November / December / early January and waiting for the other shoe to drop and last night was EXACTLY what I needed. Plus, we squeezed in a couple of hours at Universal, and we all know how much I love hanging out in Diagon Alley.

Gavin DeGraw is at Universal next weekend as part of Mardi Gras and I am so very very tempted to go back for for the day. Even though I’m not a huge fan, I like him enough to attend a free concert. I can’t afford another overnight, but the concerts get out early enough that the drive home shouldn’t kill me.

I mean, it is only a three hour drive…