Matador 21: The Lost Weekend

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matadorposter5I was lucky enough to be among about 2,000 other people in Las Vegas this past weekend celebrating the 21st anniversary of Matador Records.  While I’ll leave the reviews to the experts (like David Gerenwald from the LA Times), I would love to share my favorites. Perfume Genius was definitely not party music, but he hit the spot on Saturday in the early evening. I’ve been hearing a lot about this artist and this is one set I feel lucky to have witnessed. Simply beautiful.

Cat Power followed, kicking her set off with a cover of Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction.” She pretty much had all of us eating out of her hand after that. I could have listened to her bluesy alto all night, but Superchunk was a great change of pace. From all the rumblings I heard, I think they were the running favorite for best set on Saturday night.

The biggest surprise of the weekend was Kurt Vile. I remember listening to, and liking, his CD “Childish Prodigy” but the live show was really spectacular — the perfect way to kick off the music portion of our Sunday activities (followed by some craps and a buffet, of course). The highlight of his set was definitely “Freak Train,” check it out below.

RR

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mqbl2oaKa8[/youtube]