November 15, 2011
Matthew Good and company put on a really nice show at Edmonton's Jubilee Auditorium last night. A couple of over-sized lamps gave the stage a living-room feel. Soft piano started things off and the lights started us off on a visual journey; greens and golds, pinks and reds, and BAM white light and full scale rockshow punctuations. It was a beautiful show and well-suited to MGs imagery-packed lyrics. The musicians were tight, a cone of white light drops down over the bassist and then the guitarist as they build off of one another creating a strong groove with the lights doing there thing.
At times the sound was off, at full volume, the speakers were badly overdriven and very harsh. This isn't the incite of an audiophile: it was bad. I was surprised the Jube let this happen. But most of the show was at a level where this wasn't a major problem.
Matt Good is a funny guy and right at home talking about whatever with the audience. He got us laughing pretty good and it made for a somewhat awkward transition to the coolest version of Apparitions I've ever heard: slide guitar and that slight country feel, slowed down a bit. It made me think of that slight country feel of early Counting Crows songs. It was fantastic.
The opener Daniel Wesley did a great job; I really enjoyed his acoustic work after the screeching reggae riffs electro-style.
Overall, the show was surprisingly good on a visual level, suffered a bit from disjointedness in the song progression but had some major highlights such as a few real quality rock and roll moments and a surprisingly refreshing version of his best loved song.
