Matador 21: The Lost Weekend

I was lucky enough to be among about 2,000 other people in Las Vegas this past weekend celebrating the 21^st 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]