Review: 3 years in the making, Matchbox Twenty concert pleases Star Lake crowd

BURGETTSTOWN ― For three-and-a-half years, local Matchbox Twenty fans held onto their concert tickets, hopeful the night would come someday to see the rock band in action again.

Matchbox Twenty rewarded their patience Friday with a crowd-pleasing performance at The Pavilion at Star Lake.

Yes, the last of the COVID-postponed concerts finally happened in western Pennsylvania, though the pandemic wasn't completely forgotten. Matchbox Twenty invited a few dozen VIP-level fans to watch the first three songs of the set from a corner of the stage, with all those fans evidently required to wear N95 masks.

Matchbox Twenty had responded more cautiously than most bands to the pandemic, as co-founder Paul Doucette told The Times in an exclusive interview, though to be clear, the attitude was all about communal joy and triumph Friday during the band's two-hour romp through hits and tracks from the optimistic May release, "Where The Light Goes."

Two musicians pounded marching band-style drums, augmenting the sticks work of regular tour drummer Stacy Jones as Matchbox started with "Friends," a new song designed to sound like a stadium anthem.

Matchbox frontman Rob Thomas, maybe the only human to lose weight during the pandemic, quickly got down to business; doing his wide-eyed, head nods as he locked gazes with spectators, imparting a sincerity and purpose to even the songs that have been around a quarter century.

Like "Real World," the set's third selection, with Thomas still pleading in a relatable fashion for the world to stop hassling him.

Other first-half treats included the mid-tempo "She's So Mean," a 2012 song about a hot mess lover, and the slower, feisty title track to 2000's "Mad Season," bringing out a bit of vocal growl from Thomas.

His voice sounded strong and clear throughout, while North Huntington Township native Doucette and lead guitarist Kyle Cook strummed with tasteful textures.

The band chose to load up on hits at the end, a strategy that brought a few lulls to the middle. There were a few awkward breaks between songs, one happening when Thomas left the stage to let Cook customarily sing "The Way."

But the band galloped into the homestretch, with Cook igniting cheers with the taut guitar intro to "Bent."

"Rebels," a fine new song, finished the set solidly, with Thomas' lyrics reminding Gen Xers or other like-minded souls to appreciate what they achieved in life, even if it wasn't what their rebellious young selves had envisioned.

Roaming all over the stage, Thomas worked up a hearty sweat in his vintage gray Guns N' Roses T-shirt. He said he was glad to know the venue again is called Star Lake. At the band's 2017 show there, when it officially was named after some bank, Thomas insisted he always would call it Star Lake.

Thanking and praising the crowd several times for hanging onto their concert tickets for three years, Thomas was in his element encoring with "3 A.M.," "Unwell" and "Push," a triumvirate of 1997-2003 radio hits uplifted by his masterfully sculpted vocal hooks.

With attendance somewhere around 18,000, it was a Matchbox Twenty performance worth the long wait.

Opening act Matt Nathanson set the mood with his first words to the crowd: "Hello, Pittsburgh area people, I'm Jakob Dylan, and this is my band, The Wallflowers."

A funny line for those who remembered Dylan's Wallflowers was the originally scheduled opening act when the show was first announced in January 2020.

As always, Nathanson was loads of fun, supplying smart, engaging songs leveled with amusing banter that sometimes got self-deprecating.

He told the audience they've probably heard his songs at Home Depot or Walgreen's and teased the crowd with a few verses of AC/DC's "Highway to Hell," sung by his guitar-wielding bandmate Aaron Tap.

Nathanson somewhat kiddingly described his style as "man folk." Highlights of his engaging pop-rock ruminations included "Way Way Back," which he said anyone can relate to if they've ever had a ceiling limit on how much happiness they want an ex-lover to attain. Another California cool one was "German Cars," about being young and at a party, meeting a girl annoyed by all the rich kids there, "So we drove out to the ocean/Just to finally feel some motion/The waves sounded like explosions/And we counted every one."

Demanding the crowd get on its feet, Nathanson tried a singalong of Whitney Houston's "I Wanna Dance With Somebody" that at least got people dancing. They danced some more as he ended with a winsome rendition of the "Grease" soundtrack smash "You're The One That I Want."

Scott Tady is entertainment editor at The Times and easy to reach at stady@timesonline.com.

This article originally appeared on Beaver County Times: Matchbox Twenty