Matthew Sweet @ the State Theater
Written by DCist contributor Dave Weigel
Who are these people? Who in the year 2008 hikes to Falls Church in order to watch Matthew Sweet play a 16-song set? With a couple of skinny-jeaned exceptions, they don’t look like the same indie rock kids who went to see Sweet the last time he played in the District. The State Theatre was a rolling sea of comfy fleeces, ties, and college shirts, of people unwrapping earplugs (“I can’t stay here if it’s this loud!” whimpered a 30-something about two yards from the stage), and of point-and-shoot cameras capturing this all for posterity.
Matthew Sweet was cool once, but it was brief, and it was a long time ago. In 1991 he released Girlfriend, 15 tracks of bitter power pop and snaky, loud guitars provided by Television vet Richard Lloyd and former Voidoid Robert Quine. Within four years he put out the sloppier Altered Beast and the poppier 100% Fun with the same sidemen. When he stopped working with them, his music got softer and more obviously reverential of 1960s rock. The music was good, but Sweet’s audience grew, as Ian Faith might say, “more selective.” This year he reunited with Lloyd (Quine passed away in 2004) and recorded Sunshine Lies. The first track on the album is called “Time Machine”. The first song Sweet played in Falls Church: “Time Machine”. You can see what he’s trying to do.
”We’re going to play some new songs tonight,” Sweet said as the last chord rang out. “It looks like some of you know them.”
He played the first three tracks from Sunshine Lies in order, and mixed four more into the short set. Almost everything else was from the Lloyd/Quine albums. The single exception, “Dandelion”, came with a sheepish explanation. "That’s from one of my lesser known albums, Living Things,” he said. "This next one is possibly more familiar." And the band launched into “We’re the Same”, one of Sweet’s biggest hits, and one that he’s written notes for next to his effects pedals in order to remember how the verses start: ”Speak/Ask/Seeking/U don’t need to HIDE/What U Know.”
The sheepishness is a little out of place. Sweet doesn’t seem like a nostalgia act. His voice is the same nasal/sincere blend of Carl Wilson and Scott Miller that it’s always been, and his band can perfectly recreate the crunch of the ancient albums they're playing back. (When Girlfriend was released, Barack Obama was a 3L at Harvard Law.) He grins and backslaps while playing this material, although he needs to hydrate with multiple Deer Park water bottles placed up near the drum kit like a shrine.
Before Sweet’s set, the crowd got to see the other side of his nostalgia kick. Sweet is touring with the Bridges, a youthful Alabama band of four harmonizing women and one incredibly excitable drummer. All wore cowboy boots. All, except lead singer Brittany Painter, are siblings. (She’s their cousin.) Their album, Limits of the Sky, was produced by Sweet, as they informed the crowd in a bit of banter that won the room over. (Painter nearly lost the room when she asked whether they were inside D.C. city limits.)
The Bridges’ set was a pastiche of 1970s pop that occasionally came into its own. It was guileless, both in presentation and in content (“We always find ourselves in/ the deepest corner of/ the darkest hour, we/ can’t get much louder/ than this”), but at some point you stop chuckling at a piano line that sounds like the hook from Journey’s “Open Arms” and realize that a decent pop song is afoot. By no means should Sweet drop his schtick and become a producer, but if he can draw out the goods in a band like this, he can do a lot more with his own music than recycle the early 1990s.
”I can’t believe this is our last song,” Sweet said innocently as he revved up “Sick of Myself”, the last of the night’s 100% Fun singles. “I think it’s one you guys might know.”
Photo from Sweet's MySpace page.