* -newly added reviews

*Lauren

MATCHBOX TWENTY - MELBOURNE PARK - (ROD LAVER ARENA) November 10, 2000

At about 8:00, my best friend, my sister and I got to Melbourne Park. After finding our way through the crowded city, we arrived just as Taxiride had started. First we headed to the merchandise stand and bought out t-shirts, then made our way into the Rod Laver Arena.
By the time we got our seats, Taxiride were about half way through their set. They played songs from their debut CD Imaginate plus a few new songs. Taxiride did a good job, getting the crowd hyped up but it was obvious that everyone was anxiously waiting for Matchbox Twenty to grace the stage.
After a very suspensful intermission, Matchbox Twenty opened with Bent and the crowd roared. Every song from Mad Season was played except for Bed of Lies (which I was looking forward to) and also every song from YOSLY apart from Damn, Shame and Kody. The concert was unbelievable
Highlights for me were Busted which was awesome. The song was started slow (almost acoustic) and then it went right off. Rob was putting every emotion into it and nearly even knealt down on the stage. Back 2 Good was brilliant, I was waiting (hoping) for all the lights to be turned on in the chorus (like on the Live from the 10 Spot concert) and was not disappointed. The crowd loved it.

Also a HUGE highlight for me was when the lights were turned off and on the stage you could just make out a piano being pushed onto the centre of the stage. Rob walked out, sat at the piano and sang (and played) You Won't Be Mine, which I think is a brilliant song. The screaming crowd just sat in awe. Rest stop followed this and was sang with the same amount of passion.

The guys did one encore with about 3 songs and I think Black & White People was the last song played.
After the show my friends and I went around the back of Melbourne Park, with the hope of catching the guys before they left. Standing at a barrier we looked down and saw the Tarago's:))) We waited in the soaking rain as the roadies and crew came out (who were all very friendly). Finally, after about half an hour (ps. The roadies and everyone else had almost left and only the dark blue Tarago was left). The driver backed it back so that the guys would be under shelter and then Kyle, Brian and I think Paul (I didn't see him though) and some of the crew came out. Brian was quick to get in the car but Kyle smiled and waved to everyone:) We were told that Rob had left earlier and I'm not sure about Adam?
It was an awesome night!!!!

*Click here and Kellyanne's concert review (very colorful with pictures) from September 20, 2000 will pop up in a separate window for you to read. When your finished reading the review/experience on her page, simply close that window and you'll be right back here to read the rest. =D

*Lindsey - [email protected]

Concert: October 16, 2000

Here is the story of my concert expirience. Not so much of a review, since I have nothing to compare it to, but I find it interesting! :) Lindsey

It was a week after they posted the tour dates on their website that I found out that Matchbox was going to play in Denver at Magness Arena on October 16th.

My mom is very aware of my, uh, liking of Matchbox, so I told her, and she mentioned it to my dad at dinner on night. Nothing more was said. I had never been to a concert before. Each of my parents had never been to a concert until they were twenty. But I did have two things going for me - 1. The concert was eight days before my birthday and 2. My dad never actually said no.

Then one day, early morning on a Wednesday at the end of September, my little sister yelled up to me while I was coming downstairs. She said, “Lindsey, there’s something for your birthday downstairs.”

I’m thinking, isn’t it a bit early? I mean, it was still a month till my birthday. But I went downstairs and in the kitchen was an envelope with the words ‘Open with care’ on it. It honestly did not occur to me that it would be tickets to the concert, though I assure you I had never stopped *hoping* that I would be able to go. Anyway, I opened the envelope and inside was a card that read, ‘Get down tonight’ on the cover, and when opened it sang that song - you know, “Do a little dance, make a little love, get down tonight.” Three paper imitations of Matchy tickets fell out at me. Needless to say, I was really excited. (Slight understatement.) I’m not the type of person that goes around screaming with joy when something like that happens, but let’s just say I had an uncrackable smile for quite a while afterward. :)

So I had three tickets, one for me, one for my mom, and one for my best friend. When I told her, she made this little happy squeal and jumped up and down. :)

The night of the concert, my mom, dad, sister, best friend and I all went out to eat at this really good Italian restaurant in LoDo. Then we said our good-byes and my mom, Margaret and I headed to Magness.

We go there just as the opening act was coming on. I remember we could hear people cheering for them as we went in. We had seats in section 16, which is like the section directly across from the stage, way in the back of the arena. We were in row five, which at the time, I thought, great, we won’t be horribly far. So we sat down and it ended up that there was this stupid video projector right in front of us, so that I could see only the far right of the stage. We sat through the opening act like that, thinking up ways that we could sneak past security and go down to the floor. (Mostly along the lines of, ‘I’ll trip and create a diversion, then you run to the front,’ or ‘how bout we push the people in front of us down so that they tumble, crack their heads open on the floor, and then we run up?’ Stuff that we never would have done.) We also noticed that the seats around us were all strangly empty.

Finally, in the break between the opening act and the matchsticks, an event staff lady came up to us and asked if we would like to go down onto the floor. We’re like, are you kidding? So we ended up on the floor, because they had never told my mom that it would be an obstructed view when she bought the tickets. We were on the far right side, near the back of the pack.

After a while of waiting, they came out. The spotlights hit them each individually, each of them playing (or singing) the first song, Bent. It was awesome.

They played all the songs off of Mad Season except Leave, I believe. And all the songs off of YOSLY except track 7, Kody, and Shame. They started with Bent, ended with Stop, then came out for the encore of Busted, Push, then ended with Black and White People.

Since it was my first concert I have really nothing to compare it to, but it was awesome, terrific. You won’t be mine and Rest Stop with the piano were beautiful. And a lot of the songs had three people in the back playing sax, trumpet, trombone, and some other instruments. Hang was great too. Kyle has a beautiful voice. During Back 2 Good, I couldn’t help but think, round globes and walnuts for all! : )

Anyway, it was just an awesome concert. They are so great live. “The Mile High City, where I can get a buzz for free!”

Carrie

Today I'm suffering from post-concert depression because last night my
husband and I went to see Matchbox 20 in South Bend at Notre Dame. We
have been MB20 fans since their first CD, and waited what seemed like
forever to see them live. We were not disappointed! We were seated
second row, center, right in front of Rob. It was absolutely amazing!
Granted, MB20 is our favorite band, so of course we were going to enjoy
the show, but I've been to A LOT of concerts and I noticed the
following about last night: Their sound was exceptional. We thought
being seated that close to the stage we might have some distortion, but
the sound was crystal clear. You could hear every word, every pluck of
the bass, every drum, every guitar. Last night was the last night for
the Jayhawks to open, and they did a great job. . .we would definitely
see them again. During the last song of their set, Rob came out and
joined in on vocals. Then during the second half of MB20's set, the
Jayhawks came back out and both bands did a cover of "You can't always
get what you want...." While the band took a short break, Rob did an
acoustic version, while Kyle sang backup, of "Time After Time" and
dedicated it to his wife on behalf of their 1 year wedding anniversary
yesterday. I thought that was beautiful. Other than those two covers,
they just jammed through most of their songs. They played all but 3 (I
think) of their songs, and simply rocked for 2 hours. Rob said he
wanted the evening to be about leaving all the day-to-day CRAP outside
and for it to be all about the music for the next two hours. It
worked. I didn't think about anything else while they were rockin' in
front of us. After the show, we waited out back by the busses for
about 45 minutes, but the body guard said Rob wouldn't be coming out
because he was celebrating with his wife, but if we wanted to wait for
the other band members, he thought Kyle and Adam might come out. It
was almost midnight by then, and we had to drive home and get up for
work today, so we didn't stick around. I was also starting to get a
little chilly. But it was a fantastic evening, and I would enjoy
reading other thoughts from anyone else who was there.

BTW. . .I like "Crutch" much better live than on the CD :) It was
awesome!

***note from Age - Carrie sent me some pictures to go along with the review as well, and I'll have them as soon as I get my computer to work right!

Johanna

The Matchbox Twenty concert at the Greensboro Coliseum Complex on September
20th....KICKED ASS! Rob's gorgeous voice and the music of Paul, Kyle,Adam,
and Brian fiiled the air for two hours!!

I don't think anyone would be disappointed in the selection of songs that
were sang, whether they prefer the sultry sounds of Back 2 Good, and Rest
Stop, or the faster paced rhythm's of the Matchsticks like Long Day, and
Crutch! The Matchsticks sound just as good live...(even better, in my
opinion) as they do on CD!

The ticket price was well worth it! MB Twenty gave a hundred and fifty
percent and put on a great show! Thanks Guys! We all love you!

Denise

One note is that this was my first rock concert, so I was blown away just by the experience.  The fact that it was Matchbox Twenty REALLY overwhelmed me, so there are parts of the show that are just a haze to me.  That coupled with having a hard time describing a lot of the stuff, be gentle!!!  Oh and 90% of this I wrote RIGHT after I got home from the show (around 2 AM) to send to my friends, but I'm going to try to clean it up a LOT.
 
Reed Arena
College Station, TX
September 14, 2000
 
My brother and I went to the concert and had General Admission tickets.  We ended up about 15 yards from the stage which was really near the back of the crowd on the floor, yet still fairly decent position to clearly see what's happening.
 
The Jayhawks opened, which, since I'd never heard them before, I was curious as to what they were like.  They were good!  They amazingly started a few minutes BEFORE 8:00.  They finished up at about 8:45.  MB20 didn't start until 9:30.
 
Finally the lights go out and the curtain opened the spotlight went on Adam and he started playing 'Bent'.  He starts the opening music and suddenly all the lights come on and there they were.  LOL  (novel idea, huh?) They had for the opening this white background with lights behind it lighting it up (it was the color of the lights behind it and it changed for various songs). And then different colored lights everywhere.  And the rest of the group joins in.  Everyone is cheering and Rob has this look on his face.  I can't describe it.  He's watching this guy they the crowd is passing along over their heads.  (yup, the mosh pit was going full blast  LOL)
 
The next song was "Crutch" which was just really cool.  I think most of that song was done with purple lighting and the chorus was done with strobe lights.  The part where is slows down "move around the room in circles . . ." they got this really really deep purple, almost black, background going. No spot light, just four small spot lights: on the two sides of the stage and then two spot lights in the back corners of the stage that did this really cool light beams thing in time with the music.  It was just visually stunning.
 
They followed "Crutch" with "Argue" and then "Girl Like That".  Then when they started "Kody" these screens dropped down.  I think there were five of them and they were staggered.  The guys could walk through them and stuff. You could see through the screens, but they were opaque enough for them to project images on them.  So like "Kody" had little kids, o d as is if someone started to write Kody, but never finished.  Most of them were just designs, but some of the depicted what the song is about.  "3 AM" followed and was the first one that everyone went REALLY crazy over.  You could clearly hear everyone singing along.  At one point Rob just quit singing and listened to us singing it to them.

Lauren

'MATCHBOX 20 & THE FEELERS'
When Jess, Kristy, Simon, Aidan and I got to the old, crowd filled Palais Theatre in St. Kilda we were eagerly anticipating the welcome arrival of my very favourite, most popular, Florida born and based rock group, Matchbox 20. After a very long, crammed, three hour drive through the hustle and the bustle
of smoggy, polluted Melbourne we eventually arrived. Being huge fans, Jess and I quickly headed to the over-crowded merchandise stand
and bought our white long-sleeved Stole My Baby Tour t-shirts. We eventually found our seats in the not-so-close front row of the dress circle
when the unreal support band from the 'land of the long white cloud', New Zealands, The Feelers opened up. Featuring fantastic songs from their then soon to be released Warner album Supersystem; the band entertained the anxious excited audience. Their brief impressive half-hour set included the Triple J, radio-friendly hit single 'Pressure Man' which I recognised as soon as it began. Despite already knowing that photos weren't allowed we subtly secretly hid our compact black cameras and I promptly decided to take a colour photograph of guitarist/vocalist James Reid, bass guitarist Matt Thomas and drummer Hamish Gee of The Feelers only to be told off by the nerdy freckle-faced usher. After an exceptionally prolonged twenty minutes the massive lights were turned off and a huge screen above the dim stage lit up with pictures, quotes and ear-piercing screeching sounds. The ten-second countdown appeared on the screen and the huge white curtain was then lifted and Matchbox 20 opened up with the very powerful intense song, 'Busted'.


Handsome Rob Thomas used two different microphones to give the songs more depth, with one giving an electronic bass sound, which he used in the heavy dynamic chorus.'Busted' was followed by 'Argue', 'Girl Like That' and in no particular order every song from the number one album of 1998, Yourself or Someone Like You. During the heart-felt inspiring song 'Kody', which was written about the tragic death of a young boy, the attentive crowd hung on to every breath. A few covers and brilliant new songs including one called 'Heavy' were played to get the honest reaction of various different audiences. Unfortunately the sound in the Palais wasn't up to standard and when Rob spoke we had to strain to hear his husky voice. The biggest highlight for me was when Rob slowly walked back onto the dark dusk stage alone with his acoustic guitar, the bright soft spotlight fell on him and he sang a beautiful version of Cyndi Laupers song, 'Time After Time'. Kyle Cook who plays lead guitar, also sings and he joined Rob for 'Hang' which is such a powerful song, complimented by the amazing flawless sound from the acoustic guitars. Rob introduced us to the band's new "sixth member on keyboards, Joey Huffman" who he said, "we stole directly from the evil clutches of Soul Asylum". During the long awaited 'Push', the crowd was singing so loud and hanging onto every word that you could hardly hear Rob's stunning captivating voice. The final song, and my favourite from the album was 'Long Day'. Halfway through the intense impressive song, Rob headed back to slightly built drummer Paul Doucette. He jumped up onto the small drum stage and sang "I want to kiss you all over" much to the adoration of the screaming female fans. Long Day ended with all members of the band taking to the front of the stage. The whole concert rocked and it was absolutely fantastic.

Went to a mb20 concert and want to voice your opinions on it? Email Us! - With all of the touring, we know a lot of you will be going. IF you do, please email us a review or something! PLEASE! Oh, and also let us know if you want your email addy posted with it or not. Thanks.

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