So in no particular order, here’s what I think about last night’s performances (or, at least the ones that stand out in my mind):

U2 – I’m trying hard to reserve judgment on the new album until I get a chance to give it an in depth listen, but… I just don’t like the new single. I don’t know what it is about it, but I just don’t care for it yet. Even if it grows on me, I don’t know that last night’s performance ever will. Bono wearing eye shadow? A giant screen with the lyrics as Bono sings them? It just didn’t feel like the usual awesomeness I expect from U2.

Stevie Wonder & the Jonas Brothers – This sounded OK. What I mean by that is this: If I closed my eyes and only listened to the performance, it would have been OK. I don’t know who had the idea to pair them up with Stevie Wonder, but for some reason it really irked me that every time Stevie played or sang something, one of the Jonas Brothers would shout into the mic “Take it away, Stevie!” or “Yeah, Stevie!” or some shit like that. Boys – let’s make sure we’re clear on something here: It’s Mr. Wonder to you. Also, I thought I saw something odd last night during their performance, and other folks on the internet seem to have noticed it too: The Jonas Brother playing the white guitar and occasionally singing doesn’t really play his guitar. He carries it on stage like he’s going to play it, he moves his hands up and down the frets, and he moves his right hand up and down like he’s strumming, but… not only does his guitar not make any discernible sound or noise, but his strumming hand doesn’t strum in time with the music that you do hear, and his left hand slides up and down the fretboard without making any actual chords. Maybe I’m nuts, and maybe the other people who noticed it are nuts too, but… something is not quite right there. And how come every time Stevie Wonder was on screen, these three kids had to run over there and get in the shot with him like they belonged there?

Speaking of people who didn’t really play the guitar: Kenny Chesney. Sat on a bar stool and sang while playing a 6 string guitar and his backup band performed. My first problem here is similar to what I mentioned above: His strumming/picking hand movements didn’t at all match the sounds coming from his guitar. My second problem is that Kenny played a 6 string, which was nowhere to be found in the mix. The only acoustic that could be heard in the mix was a 12 string, presumably being played by someone in his band. Musically, this was OK, I guess. Not really my genre.

Al Green, Justin Timberlake, Keith Urban, Boys II Men: Awesome, awesome, awesome. They all sounded great. I thought Al and Justin sounded great together, and Keith had a nice solo somewhere. Didn’t really notice the presence of Boys II Men, though. Were they just backup?

Coldplay & Jay-Z: Again, this was pretty neat. I’m not a huge coldplay fan, but Viva la Vida is a pretty great all around album, and this was neat performance. I didn’t know until later that there is actually a studio cut of Lost with Jay-Z on the iTunes extended version of the album.

Kid Rock: What the fuck is he still doing on TV, at the grammys, or in the spotlight in general? Rock and Roll Jesus? And that stupid song based on Werewolves of London? That’s all it takes to get on TV now?

Taylor Swift & Miley Cyrus: I had no idea that Taylor Swift could sing that well. I don’t know anything about her, but I thought her voice sounded great.

Katy Perry: Seriously? What the hell was with the fruit? I don’t really care for her single, and that performance didn’t really do anything to change my mind.

Paul McCartney/Dave Grohl: Paul is a Beatle, and sounded like a Beatle playing a Beatles song. He sounded good. Dave Grohl was a monster. He wasn’t flashy and didn’t show off, he just sat behind the kit and rocked the fuck out.

Radiohead: This kicked so much more ass than I thought it would. I was genuinely impressed at the end of their performance. The USC marching band was a pretty fantastic addition.

Neil Diamond: I like Sweet Caroline, but Neil has an old white guy singing habit that I hate: talking through the song, instead of singing. It’s not a spoken word piece, it’s a song. Quit doing the Shatner thing and sing the damn song.

Mayer/BB King/Buddy Guy/Keith Urban: Quite the consortium of guitars on stage. A cool collaboration, although if you told me what the lineup was going to be before the performance, I never would have guessed that BB King would be the one that shone the least out of that group (although I am glad to see that he still plays). I didn’t even recognize Buddy Guy, I had to look it up to see who he was. I’m a little embarrassed by that.

Robert Plant and Alison Krauss: There may be a lot of merit in their work together, and they may be doing really great stuff, but for some reason I just can’t get into it. Admittedly, I haven’t heard the whole Raising Sand album. While the handful of tracks I have heard are pretty good, I just can’t get into it. It’s almost kind of… boring? Maybe I’m biased because I want him to give this other shit a rest and do the Zeppelin reunion tour. That must be it. Good to see that Robert Plant still comes off like an egotistical prick, though.

So that’s my long winded summary of the performances last night. If I have to sum up this year in one line, then I guess this is my glowing review: For me, there were more really neat and interesting moments than there were WTF bizarro moments. Great sales pitch, right?

Matt Nathanson is fantastic. Sure, he’s not for everyone, and I know that there’s lots of people who are turned off on him for a handful of reasons (he’s too vulgar on stage, he covers 80′s hair band songs, whatever,) but he’s been writing some great songs the past few years and he has absolutely one of the best live shows that I’ve ever seen. He’s fun, energetic, he always interacts with the crowd, and he works his ass off to make sure that crowd leaves talking about how great the show was.

So in April of 05 he did a short little record store tour promoting the live album he just released. One of the stops on the tour was Streetside Records (at the Loop.) The recording and setlist can be found at the archive, here: http://www.archive.org/details/mn2006-04-29.instore.

Pluses and minuses to this, obviously. The plus here is that it’s free, and it would be a relatively intimate setting compared to the normal stage-concert.

The cons: A very much abridged setlist, likely not to clock in at over half an hour, the possibility of having way too many people crammed into a record store, and (as we would find out later) Matt’s manager/crew/whoever being a total pain in the ass about taping the show.

Laura, Christine, and myself all went to this. It was at about 10:30 in the morning (and Christine’s first live matt experience) and he stars absolutely came into alignment for this. The weather was bad – it was the coldest day we’d had in a few weeks, and it was raining and gloomy all day. So needless to say, everyone who was there wanted to be there.

Not only was it a very small crowd, but everyone was perfectly behaved. They laughed when he was funny, they were quiet when he sang, and they didn’t talk on cell phones during songs. Matt was funnier than usual, played some stuff that was neat to hear in that setting, and the recording sounds fantastic – really worth checking out if you’re even just a little bit of a fan. The whole show is worth having, but Car Crash, Detroit Waves, and Suspended are especially fantastic if you only want to check out a few.

The Matt Nathanson trifecta is now complete – I’ve professed the greatness of Matt, reviewed the Matt show that we went to, and made a shameless plug for one of my own Matt recordings.