Matt Pond is a nice guy, and his band is a good band. According to him, that’s all you need in life. Judging by his show on Sunday night at the Bowery Ballroom, he’s got it pretty much right. Playing rocked up versions of songs both old and new, Pond and co. proved that sincere songs don’t have to be too serious.
First up was Canadian band Wintersleep, a band that Pond called “the best band we’ve ever toured with.” Wintersleep has certainly done well for themselves, winning Canada’s prestigious Juno award for New Group of the Year in 2008. I only knew one Wintersleep song prior to the evening – the brilliant “Weighty Ghost” – but their set convinced me to seek out more. Lead singer Paul Murphy has a textured voice that resembles Colin Meloy at his most stressed, high pitched and grainy without being grating. Wintersleep succeeded most when they let his voice stand out, and the band only gathered steam as the set went on.
Matt Pond PA took the stage after a short set break and, like Wintersleep, got off to a slow start. The crowd at the Bowery Ballroom, typically animated, was subdued – more than once during the night performers mentioned the silence in the audience. Where Murphy found it nice, Pond seemed to be a little thrown off. “You can shout stuff at us, you know, tell us what we’re doing wrong and stuff. Just because it’s Sunday night doesn’t mean that you have to be quiet. We’re all in this together.”
After Pond introduced two separate songs with the phrases, “This is a song” and “This is another song,” the audience got into the act. “Play a song!” came a voice in the crowd during a pause about halfway through the set.
“I see you’ve caught on,” chuckled Pond with a twinkle in his eye. “What, would you rather I tell jokes?”
“No jokes!” came the immediate response.
Falsely indignant, Pond took off his guitar. “Alright, now I’m gonna tell some jokes!”
The jokes never came, but the exchange did seem to loosen the mood. Pond let out an endearing chuckle or two on stage, smiled a bit, and thanked the crowd for welcoming the band back to New York for the final show of this tour. Matt Pond PA’s best songs captured that easiness, a collaborative storytelling session rather than a face-melting rock show. “New Hampshire” and “Giving It All Away,” two of Pond’s slower songs, were particular highlights.
Matt Pond PA comes in a variety of forms – over the course of the last dozen years the band has seen an astonishing twenty-three members shuffle in and out. Pond is the only constant, anchoring what is otherwise a constantly shifting ensemble. Currently, the band is as turned up as you’ll hear them, Jim Hostetter’s cello parts have been replaced by Leslie Sisson’s electric guitar, and the lead guitar amp is cranked far higher than it needs to be. Where the show billed Pond as using strings to “create lush melancholic songs shimmering with melody and soaring arrangements,” Sunday night saw a more straight-forward, meat and potatoes approach – perhaps an attempt to kick up the enthusiasm on what are often sad songs.
That attempt succeeded, though perhaps some depth was lost in the trade. Matt Pond is a great songwriter, but he’s not a rockstar. When the crowd broke him out of his shell, he found the sincerity that has built him a passionate following. Hopefully Pond will keep that in mind when the next backing band swings through the friendly confines of Matt Pond PA.
