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| Matthew Sweet at McCabes |
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| Sweet, tuning up for the show |
I've been a Matthew Sweet fan since Girlfriend was released 20 years ago, when I was working on KOTR in San Luis Obispo as their fill-in overnight disc jockey. The album was in heavy rotation at the station, and it's mix of pretty harmonies and crankin' guitars appealed to me. Sweet's just a bit younger than I am, and all of his influences are the same bands that I, too, grew up with, so the sound of that album just appealed to me. At the time I had just ended a long relationship-one of the reasons I moved to San Luis in the first place, and I was juggling a few 'girlfriends.' What I really wanted was the one girl who could represent everything to me. It seemed like that was what Sweet was singing about, so I could instantly relate. Since that time, the album has continued to grow on me, and many times I've tried to count the guitars playing on a track as complex as "Divine Intervention," or "Holy War." In my collection of over 3000 cd's, this is the go to if I want to show someone the type of music I enjoy.
I've seen Sweet once before, in '97, I think, touring with guitarist Ivan Julian, and it was an amazing show at a small Hollywood club, with Sweet pulling out a different vintage guitar for every song. This show he played the whole time with a Fano Stratosphere (except when the McCabe's management pulled a MIM Stratocaster off the wall to loan to Sweet when a string broke), which had a vintage crunch and a cool, space age look. Lead guitarist Dennis Taylor handled all of the Robert Quine/Richard Lloyd parts easily with his Statocaster, and even did a fair job at mimicking Greg Leisz's pedal steel on tracks like "Wynona."McCabe's is a great place to see a show, and sitting in the third row to hear my favorite album performed live was an amazing experience.
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