Almost-Spring Child

This suburban Phillyist was felled by the twin terrors of a flooded basement and strep throat (no, really. We're loving March so far) Friday night, and couldn't venture into the city to catch Local Boy Making Good Matt Duke's show at the World Café Live. Fortunately for us, Sister of Phillyist is both a Drexel student and a total Matt Duke fangirl, so she agreed to cover the show for us. What follows is her guest review of last night's show.

In the interest of full disclosure, we should tell you that we've been a little bit in love with Matt Duke's music since we first saw him play in 2003, when he competed against our brother in an acoustic battle of the bands competition at St. Joe’s University.

Since the student-run Mad Dragon Records release of his album Winter Child, Matt Duke’s fan base has exploded in size, allowing him to sell out just his second headlining show at World Café Live. (Proud sister alert: Our brother's band, The Limericks, opened for him at his first headlining show.) The Kin - a group of three men from Adelaide, Australia - opened up for Matt this time around, hooking the crowd with their Wheat-esque simple mix of guitar, piano, and drums, ending a roughly 40-minute set with a song dedicated to Darfur.

Matt Duke took the stage with a mellow, acoustic cover of The Lemonheads' "Outdoor Type." He then brought out his bassist, Dane Kline, who also plays mandolin for Duke, to do his original song, “Listen to Your Window,” and was then joined by his drummer, Nate Barnett, to complete the band. Duke then spent the next half hour proving to the crowd what an amazingly talented musician he is, complete with his electric guitar solos, acoustic beats, and some fairly inventive covers.

At 10:30 his band left, but not before playing a truly kick-ass version of Duke's original song "The Minder," which can be found on Unleashed II, also from Mad Dragon Records. Duke finished out the night with 40 minutes of completely solo work, playing to the crowd by asking what they wanted to hear, and letting his fans dictate his setlist. He was asked to play “Focus” off of the compilation album XYX, and asked to sing a song about tutus. He responded to this admittedly odd request by playing a medley of “Focus” and an improv about taking ballet lessons. By this point, there was no doubt that the crowd was hooked, if they hadn't been already. He continued to play mostly original music while mixing in a cover here and there, such as Van Morrison’s “And It Stoned Me” and “In an Aeroplane Over the Sea” by Neutral Milk Hotel, which dovetailed nicely with the music from Duke's Winter Child. When he played his song "Oysters," he asked the crowd to perform the song's whistling solo, which worked surprisingly well. He ended the night with a preview of some new material, followed by a pair of encores, playing J. Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers' “Last Kiss,” and then his own "Don’t Ask for too Much."

Overall, we were totally impressed with the show. In our admitedly biased opinion, Matt Duke is a musician who is ready to take on the national music industry. We wholeheartedly suggest catching one of his shows live; when you go, you’re bound to fall in love with his melodies, and maybe just him in general, like we have. (Remember, we said we were fangirls.) So remember his name because you’ll be hearing it a lot more in the future, especially if you’re invited to our wedding. Our wedding in general, not our wedding with Matt Duke, although we probably wouldn't complain about the latter that much.