LIVE WIRE: He's in love with his pills.

(Matt Good never believed in UFOs until his Thursday night show at Vancouver's Orpheum Theatre. It's amazing what a single probe can do to some people. © 2008 Benjamin Luk.)

There were times when I was watching Matt Good perform last Thursday night at The Orpheum that I found myself wondering just how medicated the poor guy actually is. Not that his stage presence wasn’t as magnetic as always, and not that his musical talents were in any way lacking, but it just took so long for anything he sang off Hospital Music, his most recent and most personal album to date, to feel as though it were happening to him and not some other poor schmo. I mean, for a guy who found out that his wife was cheating on him, lost his unborn daughter, and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder all in the space of just over a year, you’d think watching the man perform songs about that horrid time of his life would make you want to whip out your lighters in tribute, put a plastic bag over your head and inhale deeply. Thanks to his meds though (and likely because this is nearing the end of his current tour and he’s already performed these songs over and over again for months on end), much of what he performed from Hospital Music didn’t have quite the same impact as when he played his acoustic show at The Centre last September, when his emotional wounds were still fresh.

Now, if you know anything about Matt Good, you’d know that his music is very lyrically based, as though some clinically depressed political activist transcribed his entire journal (or blog, I guess, in this day and age) into verse and put it to our epic North American trademark alt rock. Thus, Matt Good has his lovers and haters, because his music demands a certain level of emotional involvement that not everybody is willing to give. The audience at his show was a smattering of Vancouverite clichés, ranging from the hot Asian hipster chick trying not to cry during “Weapon”, to the permafried-into-indifference dude in the Joe Montana jersey smoking a doob in Row 15 during “Load Me Up”. I’m not the type to tear up, so the first half of his show (which opened on the 10-minute-long “Champions of Nothing”) dragged a bit for me, but you can’t fault the guy’s lyrical prowess. Using Hollywood Indians, snow, mountains and fountains as metaphors for nostalgia and days gone past, his audience paid attention to his poetry in ways that would have made any grade school English teacher go postal with jealousy.

But then, just when I figured “Born Losers” was the highlight of a semi-intimate attempt at an emotionally heavy show, Good suddenly whipped out his repertoire from albums past, finally making full use of his new band. (Oh yeah, he has a new band that he’s touring with. Did I forget to mention that?) Starting with “Avalanche” and slowly building towards brilliantly layered performances of “Black Helicopter” and “Apparitions”, I was back in 2004 again, discovering Matt Good for the first time while sneaking my first underage beer. And then, the encores! Two encores! In total, the encores lasted nearly as long as the show itself. And the encores were what I was waiting for, with Matt Good finally breaking out from being a sad ol’ sack of shit and finally rocking out to tunes like “Giant” and “Hello Time Bomb” in a fashion that would have made Brad Delp, if not proud, then at least nod in approval. Closing on “Everything Is Automatic” (to which I loudly sang along with) and “She’s In It For The Money”, it finally felt real again. And I really, sincerely hope that despite his lyrics, Matt Good won’t be so in love with his pills that he’ll try to get rid of himself the same way Delp did. The music world would miss him too much.

Matt, if you’re reading this someday, best of luck. I’ll shine a light down on you any night. (Furthermore, you need a better drummer. Coincidentally, I fucking rock on skins.)

Matt Good's Vancouver Set List:

• Champions of Nothing
• A Single Explosion
• Odette
• Born Losers
• The Devil's In Your Details
• Avalanche
• Load Me Up
• Put Out Your Lights
• Blue Skies Over Bad Lands
• Black Helicopter
• I'm A Window
• 99% Of Us Is Failure
• Apparitions
• Weapon
• Giant*
• Hello Time Bomb*
• Everything Is Automatic*
• She's In It For The Money*
• Alert Status Red*
• Girl In The War* (Josh Ritter cover)

* Songs marked with an asterisk were played during the encore(s).

This article will appear in an upcoming issue of The Other Press. Special thanks to Luke Simcoe, A&E editor, for both picking up the article and allowing it to run on ThatRockBlog.com without my having to deal with all that exclusivity bullshit.

Also, special thanks to Pete Clyde of Live Nation and Shannon Mackay, resident Matt Good expert.