08/23 Matt Pryor Show @ Stubb’s
Matt Pryor has evolved quite a bit to get to where he is now. Would you have believed me 10 years ago if I told you he’d be playing shows armed only with an acoustic guitar? Most of the vagrant punk followers would accuse you of mistaken identity and slap you around a bit. Believe it or not you old Get Up Kids die hards, that’s what Matt Pryor is all about nowadays. He went to being a pioneer in the pop-punk world to now being an extremely solid singer song writer who still inspires the young and old.
Show review and pictures after the jump
Matt answered any questions about his loyalty to James Dewees of Reggie and The Full Effect by kicking his set off with one of the oldest Reggie songs, “Girl, Why’d You Run Away?”. Probably not a song you’d expect to hear acoustically, but it came off sounding like one of Matt’s solo efforts as opposed to a punk anthem. The rest of Matt’s set consisted of some of the best songs on his recent solo album Confidence Man, older New Amsterdams favorites, and even older acoustic oriented Get Up Kids tunes. The first half of Matt’s set concentrated more on the newer material just to ease folks into the show. “Confidence Man” will probably go down as one of my favorite songs of the year. The second half of the set focused more on crowd favorites like “Out of Reach”, “Hannah Hold On”, & “Worse for the Wear”. Matt got some major crowd help with backing vocals on all of these oldies but goodies. Highlight of the evening was Matt’s most personal and heartbreaking song “Goodbye” from New Ams album Never You Mind. Matt dedicated the song to a close friend’s mom who passed away recently, “This one’s for you Phyllis”. You could tell that the former punk mastermind truly felt the words coming from his mouth.
Matt made sure to end his acoustic set before midnight so he could run over to Emo’s and catch his good friend James in Reggie and the Full Effect. The two old buds have obviously chosen different paths recently, but I admire Matt’s support of his old friend. At one point the guys bands would have competed with each other on the same night, but not with the new stripped down Matt Pryor. He has created a beatiful, acoustic oriented singer songwriter album written and recorded completely on his own in Confidence Man. I’m fairly sure no one could ever get tired of listening to Matt Pryor sing, I know I don’t. He sounds like no one else. I can’t wait to hear where he goes next with each effort turning into instant classics. Keep up the good work Mr. Pryor.