These facets of the modern condition often converge to encroach on our enjoyment of the moment before us — we are either too busy analyzing an experience or too busy broadcasting it to the world around us (or both) to actually give ourselves to the moment.
Enter Matt and Kim. They came to call bullshit on all that. They’re on a mission to shake away the world’s complexity by compelling you to shake that ass. These two athletes-turned-musicians delivered an exuberant, deceptively simple set of bouncy indie electrorock to a packed house of gleeful hipsters hopped up on joy and — for 90 magic minutes — freed from the shackles of irony.
And they did it all while grinning from ear to ear for the entire show as though they were pounding out the sweet beat of the rapture on a snare drum and Casio-tone keyboard, pulling the audience along with them into their own blissful rabbit hole of sound. As they cranked out hit after hit while the audience chanted along, they seemed the living musical embodiment of The Beatles’ unhinged White Album plea to “c’mon accept your joy!”
In an age of indie rock brooders, too jaded and aloof to engage in anything so pedestrian as excitement and showmanship, this show was a welcome respite. Matt periodically came from behind the keyboard to dance to his own funkified groove while Kim not only crowd-surfed, she crowd walked deep into the audience and back, then repeatedly hopped onto the top of her bass drum and gyrated as if possessed. For the entire show, the duo grinned as if they’d both just eaten an entire rave’s worth of ecstasy. There were balloons. Confetti. Drinks. Dancing. If it sounds like a party, well, that’s because it was exactly that…one big communal party with Matt and Kim and a jam-packed room of people smiling like they’d won the lottery.
Their positivity was infectious — they truly felt lucky to be able to rock out with us. The feeling was mutual.
