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Tonight Mairead and I went into Boston to see Matt Nathanson at the House of Blues. It was an AWESOME concert! I absolutely loved it and we had so much fun. Panera’s for dinner, wandering around the streets near Fenway, and Mairead even saw some of her friends from high school waiting behind us in line. 

The concert itself was great for a million reasons. I love the House of Blues already from when I saw Sara Bareilles there, but being on the floor is much better than being up in the seats. We were very close to the stage and I got some great pictures. We were there plenty early enough; even though there was an enormous line all the way up the street outside, we were able to get near the front. 

Vanessa Carlton opened right at 7. (Timing of everything was excellent tonight.) She is…hmm. An interesting person. She likes words like “apocolyptic,” uhhh other words I can’t think of. [MN called her music “transcendent” at the end haha.] She was extremely excited to be playing, although her stage presence didn’t show it very well. She’s kind of awkward and kind of weird. But she seems like a nice person and someone you’d be friends with…just not go to their concerts. Her new album is weird; I don’t particularly like it. She was proud of the fact that it was recorded on tape and can be sold on vinyl. She talked about working in “Lord of the Rings” with “hobbits” and whatnot to make the album…mmhmm. She had a violin player with her, Sky, and he was great. The violin made a perfect accompaniment to her, it added balance and sounded so good with the piano. VC finally played 1000 miles and everyone cheered…but then she FORGOT the lyrics! Sheesh! It was more than a little weird. Oh well. Everyone clapped for her but most people weren’t really into it, her music was too mellow for what everyone was expecting to be a rock concert. 

After 40 minutes of Vanessa and another 15 minutes of set up:

Matt Nathanson came onstage to a lot of screaming…and to the soundtrack you hear when a superhero is announced! haha. He is just such a great performer. He seems like he’s genuinely a good person and cares about all the songs he writes. When he sang “Kiss Quick,” he was so seriously concentrated on it, you could tell how much it meant to him. Everyone was especially quiet for that one. I love it, it’s a beautiful but sad song. When he played “Drop to Hold You,” almost at the end of his set (we actually thought it was the end), he sounded so perfectly happy, you could just see the joy pouring out of him as he sang it, smiling hard the whole time. “This is for all the people who have found someone [great]. And to all of you who haven’t found that person yet, sometimes it takes a really long time, but when you finally find them it’s wonderful.” Or something like that. He put it better than I quote him. He played “All We Are” at the end of his encore, and even though he kept getting distracted and going off on tangents about Kim Kardashian, his message was simple and genuine. We live in a world where everyone wants to just be famous, not do any work, and not actually DO anything great. But he wants us to do someone great, to work at some kind of craft. 

He talked a little bit about every single song, I think. He is so funny in his dialouge between songs, Mairead and I were laughing almost the whole time. I have never had so much fun at a concert before. I left being so perfectly happy, even though we literally ran two blocks to catch the bus back, it was worth every minute. Biology studying will happen more tomorrow. Tonight was more important for music that thumps through your whole body, songs that make you really feel something, and a great concert buddy to experience it all with.

^_^