Old Friend

Matthew Sweet / The Bridges at The Fox Theatre. I’ve been a Matthew Sweet fan since the early 90’s, and it’s been nine years since I last saw him (NINE YEARS!?!). During that period he’s put out a couple good albums (Kimi Ga Suki, Under the Covers Vol. 1) and some that are best forgotten (Living Things), but his recently released Sunshine Lies seems to be a return to the sound that made his earlier albums so successful. My brother got me tickets for my birthday, so he and I made the trek to Boulder to check out the show.

First up were The Bridges, an Alabama band made up of 3 sisters, their brother, and a cousin. Since Matthew produced their debut album, they were a natural fit for the opening slot. With 4 females contributing vocals, they have a very lush sound (imagine the Dixie Chicks if they played power pop instead of country), and you could definitely hear the Sweet influence in the song structures and harmonies. I was impressed enough that I’ll track down their album. I might have been persuaded to buy it at the merch table on the way out tonight, but I didn’t feel like fighting my way through the line of dorks awaiting their chance to hit on the hottie guitarist (not that she wasn’t worth standing in line for).

Matthew and band came on around 9:15. Without making too many excuses, there were a lot of factors working against the show (cold, rainy, Monday, the Broncos on Monday Night Football, playing in a college town when his audience has gotten quite a bit older than that), and it was reflected in the size of the crowd. I’d be surprised if there were much more than 100 people in the room. I think the band noticed, and it probably took some wind out of their sails and kept the show from being as good as it could have been. I don’t think it helped that they started to lose some of the crowd during the first half of the set, which contained mostly new songs, but they recovered in the second half, which drew pretty heavily from Girlfriend. Actually, I was surprised at the fact that the setlist ignored so many albums. Other than “Sick of Myself” and one song from Living Things, the entire setlist came from Girlfriend, Altered Beast and Sunshine Lies. I was bummed not hear anything from In Reverse or Kimi Ga Suki. Then again, the set was short — only about an hour and then a two-song encore (both Girlfriend tracks) — so there weren’t many opportunities to delve into the back catalog.

I don’t want to say the show was disappointing, because it definitely wasn’t. It was more like when you catch up with an old friend that you haven’t seen in years, and after a few minutes, you realize things have changed so much that you can’t just pick up right where you left off any more. For starters, Matthew’s gained a pretty shocking amount of weight since I last saw him 9 years ago (to the point that I’m actually worried about his health), which did take some getting used to. Plus, I was bummed to see so few people at the show, because I think after 11 albums, he deserves better, but I blame that partly on putting the show in Boulder instead of Denver. I’d be surprised if he has many college-aged fans these days, and I bet he could have easily drawn three times that crowd if the show had been in Denver, closer to an older fan base. Finally, I think he’s at that tipping point in his career where the audience wants his greatest hits, but he still wants to play the new songs, so the energy level just felt a bit off all night — huge drops when he played new stuff, big spikes when he trotted out the oldies.

That said, the band sounded tight once they got going. Yes, I wish the show had been longer, but despite some things not being perfect, getting to hear “Girlfriend,” “I’ve Been Waiting,” “Divine Intervention,” “Ugly Truth Rock,” “Sick of Myself,” and “Someone To Pull the Trigger” played live again made the night worthwhile.

UPDATE: Just for old times’ sake...

Mystery Man

As Major League Soccer continues its growth in this, its 10th season, one way I tend to track its progress is through the media coverage. In cities with MLS teams, coverage in the sports page for the home team (and soccer in general) is usually pretty good. Take a look at the paper in a non-MLS city though, and you’re usually lucky to find a standings table on the next-to-last page below the local high school scores. So as an American soccer fan so often does, I turn to the internet to get my fix. ESPN, Sports Illustrated, and the offical site for MLS are my main sources. Marc Connolly, Grant Wahl, and Jeff Bradley generally provide the bulk of the writing, offering insightful columns and interviews. But the stable of knowledgeable writers is beginning to grow. Ives Galarcep, Jeff Carlisle, Frank Dell'Apa, Jen Chang, Michael Lewis, Jamie Trecker and Robert Wagman also tackle MLS and US Soccer from time to time with varying degrees of quality and criticism. But the sign that the coverage is starting to mature is that there are now humorous columns that bring you MLS news with equal parts smack talk, sarcasm, and self-deprecating humor. Former MLS player Greg Lalas is beginning to find his voice, but much like ESPN.com’s Sports Guy column on Page 2, MLSNet has The Clean Sheet, written by a guy who calls himself Tino Palace. This is most definitely a pseudonym (if you look at his photo on MLSNet, you'll see he’s taken pains to disguise himself), and rumors of his true identity range from Drew Carey (celeb soccer fan) to Jim Rome (card-carrying soccer-basher) to Don Garber (MLS Commissioner). Whoever he is, the man can write. Granted, you’ll need a fair amount of soccer and pop culture knowledge to understand his jokes, but I take it as a good sign that a column like this can find a following. It speaks well for the development of MLS and soccer fandom in this country.

And then there's Heather Mitts. She may have a long way to go as a writer, but after looking at the faces of all these balding, paunchy sportswriters, she gives one heck of a headshot.