Matthew Good’s sold out show at the Stone, Nov. 17 was a good example of why Lethbridge needs a decent sized concert hall, midway between the Enmax and the Yates, but not as cavernous as Exhibition Park’s South Pavilion.
I’m not surprised Good (according to my interview with him last week) prefers to play theatre shows, though he observed it was nice to have the audience so close to him at this show.
With a large, rowdy, alcohol fu
elled crowd crammed together shoulder to shoulder, wall to wall with scarcely room to breathe let alone move, I wasn’t surprised there were a few short fuses.
So it was only a matter of time before the ‘time bomb’ went off two songs in.
Good started off the show slow with a couple long ambient numbers, then stopped his show midway though the second song to snap at and roundly curse out some loogans fighting in the front.
No knock on him, but I was a little shocked to see that as the crowd roared their appreciation for his reaction.
It reminded me of a Social Distortion show I saw years back at the University of Calgary when lead singer Mike Ness jumped into the crowd and went after some fan who was spitting on him. I thought 
Good was going to do the same. Good on him, though I heard he has been known to do this sort of thing on occassion.
After a quick pause to regroup, Good restarted his song, then apologized to the crowd for his outburst, saying “We’re all here to have a good time,” and asking the other audience members in the area of the scrape if they were all right.
His show featured a nice balance between the mellower songs and more upbeat numbers.
I’d never seen him play live before but was impressed with his voice and especially by his band.
His band was right on the money so Good periodically stepped back out of the blinding spotlights and flashing multi-coloured strobes to let them shine.
For the most part he was playing a such a mellow show, it would have been better suited to a theatre, however in addition to a lot of his newer material, he pulled out the big guns like “Weapon” and “Apparition,” which drew the show to a close and and more rocking numbers like “Hello Time Bomb” and “ Load Me Up.” But most of it was laid back, ambient Radiohead style music he has been doing lately.
My favourite Matthew Good song is “Everything is Automatic,” but I didn’t hear it unless he played it when I left to get a bigger camera lens or during the encore, which I just couldn’t stay around for.
