Matthew Sweet - City Winery, NYC, 7.18.14

by Bruce Alexander
Posted: Jul 2014
(1931) Page Views

- photo by Bruce Alexander

Matthew Sweet has been playing these annual gigs at The City Winery for some time, now. For this round, he performed a selection of favorites from his past albums. He started his set with “Time Capsule”, a tune from his Altered Beast album. “Birddog,” a recent tune from his “Sunshine Lies” release followed.

Not only is Sweet an excellent songwriter and singer, he also knows how to wail on that guitar of his. Sweet’s band is a tight group of players that consists of Ric Menck banging out wild percussion on drums, Dennis Taylor providing rock solid guitar riffs and Paul Chastain playing amazing bass lines.

Sweet also played a bunch of songs from his “Girlfriend” album. When he played “I Wanted To Tell You,” it sounded great. It’s one of his best songs, along with “Evangeline,” which has a Neil Young feel to it and is a crowd favorite. There were so many strong songs that came off live very well. Sweet really knows how to work an audience.

“Divine Intervention” is a solid rock song and “I’ve Been Waiting” is a lovely pop tune. Sweet’s music is diverse and covers much musical terrain.

Sweet ended with his trademark song “Girlfriend,” as many people in the back of the room danced up a storm to it. Sweet’s encore was “Devil With The Green Eyes” and “Sick of Myself,” which nobody else was. Sweet injected some really cool sound effects that rang out of his amps before leaving the stage with a banging blast off!

Opening act Tommy Keene is another great power pop singer, and Sweet joined him at the end of his set.

It was a truly fun night of mind-blowing, melodic, guitar driven power pop!