As you may already know, I haven’t enjoyed streaming technology during the pandemic. This all changed on Friday night however.
Earlier in the week, I came across a post on Canadian musician Matthew Good’s facebook page. It was an announcement that you could purchase tickets for an online event on Friday night. He was streaming from his house and it only cost $20. Between the fact he isn’t touring and with this being a steal, I decided to take the plunge.
I’d never listened to a streaming show like this and was really excited to hear live music again. Not only that, it gave me the opportunity to support an artist who’s impacted my life since high school. (Upon my insistence, Jan and I were also really nerdy. We pretended it was a date and acted like we were actually at a concert venue. We didn’t watch the show in pyjamas and I even put on some MG merchandise to boot.)
The online concert itself was excellent. Matt performed from his garage while the tech people from Side Door were set up inside the house. We streamed the concert from my phone to the Apple TV and the sound came out great. Being in the garage provided natural reverb and really made everything quite powerful.
While hits like Load Me Up, Strange Days, Alert Status Red, Born Losers and Hello Timebomb were performed acoustically, Matt also highlighted a few songs from his latest album Moving Walls. This included Radicals, Parts and Selling You My Heart. As if that weren’t enough, he also pulled out a few rarities and lesser-played tunes like The Fine Art Of Falling Apart, Tripoli, Metal Airplanes and While We Were Hunting Rabbits.
Between sets of a few songs, he also took questions from people watching and interacted with fans through the stream. Being on Zoom, he was able to use the gallery view and see everyone who was listening (and wanted to be seen.) At one point, the moderator from Side Door had everyone wave to Matt and it became a surprisingly interactive experience. It’s weird to know that we were across the country and still felt right there with everyone else in a communal setting.
All in all, we had a great night. The broadcast lasted about two hours and was a great alternative to seeing someone live. Not only were tickets cheaper, we didn’t have to worry about travelling out of town, dropping cash on a hotel room and different accessibility issues from going to a highly populated venue… it was really nice.
Kudos to the guys at Side Door and Matthew Good himself. Hopefully it’s something they continue to do in the future!