Matthew Good Is All Business, No Politics In Toronto

"I have this ongoing competition with myself to see how long I can go in a show before stopping the show," Matthew Good said six songs into the first evening of his two-night stand at Toronto's Massey Hall on Friday (Dec. 18).

Good and his backing band took the stage and seemed to be all business as they ripped through six tunes — mostly from the recently released Vancouver — before Good finally acknowledged there was an audience of several thousand people in front of him.

"How long did we go this time? Six songs?"

Good and company played a relatively short set after fellow Vancouverites Mother Mother opened up the show. Truthfully, Mother Mother have very little in common with Good aside from their shared home bases.

The band play a brand of upbeat indie rock that makes them sound like a more '80s-obsessed version of The New Pornographers, while Good is known for his U2-esque, completely straight-faced anthemic rock songs.

Nonetheless, Mother Mother succeeded in getting at least four people on their feet during their warm-up, which featured songs from 2008's O My Heart and 2007's Touch Up.

The crowd mostly stayed seated (save for one completely awesome and somewhat insane young lady to the left of the stage, who danced and screamed on her feet for the entire night) until Good cranked out the Matthew Good Band's "The Future Is X-Rated" five songs into his set. From there, everyone stood and gave him their complete attention, despite the set being heavy on new tunes.

But Good wasn't completely serious for the entire night. After finishing the Matthew Good Band's "Load Me Up" and preparing to start the group's "Apparitions," Good jokingly said he was going to feed guitarist Stuart Cameron to a jaguar on stage. Amusingly, Good said such an episode would become notorious and end up "on the front page of a history of Canadian rock book." It was great to see he's still got his sardonic sense of humour.

At times it seemed as if the set was flying by, but that was presumably due to Good's approach to the show. Indeed, there were absolutely no political opinions expressed on stage.

Banter was kept to a minimum and not drawn out. The emphasis remained on the performance, and while it became apparent during several songs ("Apparitions" among them) that Good's voice is not what it used to be and he can't hit high notes as well as he used to, he and his band still put on a pretty great show.

Good ended his set with "Weapon" before he and his crew returned to the stage for a four-song encore that included "Giant," "Us Remains Impossible," "Empty's Theme Park" and a rendition of The National's "Fake Empire" (which Good did unaccompanied) before the band went off into the night (presumably to avoid jaguars).

Here is what Matthew Good played:

"On Nights Like Tonight"
"Avalanche"
"The Boy Who Could Explode"
"Last Parade"
"The Future Is X-Rated"
"Great Whales Of The Sea"
"Born Losers"
"The Vancouver National Anthem"
"Load Me Up"/"Love Will Tear Us Apart"
"Apparitions"
"Weapon"
"Giant" (encore)
"Us Remains Impossible" (encore)
"Empty's Theme Park" (encore)
"Fake Empire (National cover)