Matt and Kim and the Magic of Live Music
About 18 hours ago, I entered The Regent Theatre in downtown Los Angeles. Built in 1914, the venue has a roughly 1,000-person capacity that was already buzzing when I made my way toward the front and center of the stage, landing just a few rows back to see one of my favorite bands — Matt and Kim.
To describe this two-piece band, made up of the lively couple Matt Johnson and Kim Schifino, is to describe lightning in a bottle, or energy or joy itself.
Let me start out with why I was moved to write this — I walked home last night thinking, knowing that I just had my favorite-ever live music experience. I don’t say that lightly, either. I’ve been lucky enough to get to see my favorite all-time bands, singers and musicians, some of them multiple times (including M&K).
This Oct. 13 show at The Regent was hands down the best.
I was first introduced to the music of Matt and Kim, namely their breakthrough hit “Daylight,” in 2011 during my freshman year of college. That was the same year I was introduced to a lot of new music thanks to new friends with impeccable taste.
While those close friendships didn’t withstand the test of time, my love of Matt and Kim and bands like Grouplove, Best Coast and MGMT certainly did. However, there was a multi-year period where I didn’t listen to any of that music. Coming back to it, partly out of nostalgia, I quickly fell in love with these bands all over again in late 2016.
Less than a year after first moving to Los Angeles, I’d been doing a bit of freelance concert photography and saw that Matt and Kim would be at the Hollywood Palladium on April 4, 2018. I jumped at the chance to go and they’ve had a die-hard fan ever since. Simply take a look at the photo below to see why.
One month to the day after that show, they released my favorite album of theirs (and their most recent full-length effort), ALMOST EVERYDAY. It’s the only record of theirs I know front to back, and became part of the soundtrack to my brief time living in an old Class C RV. (I’d even hung up a poster that came with the vinyl I bought in that RV, which was stolen some years later. I like to think that it’s still hanging in the back bedroom cabinet.)
In 2019, upon moving back to L.A., I attended my first show as a fan at The Novo on Nov. 7, part of the Grand 10-Year Celebration Tour. I can’t say I remember too many specifics from that show, but I can easily recall the very familiar feeling of walking out of a Matt and Kim show — an intimate spectacle that, in this case, managed to squeeze 10 years of sounds onto their simple 15x15 riser, just the two of them, as always.
I also saw them at Innings Festival in Tempe, Arizona, on Feb. 27, 2022. This time, pandemic weary as hell, I scored a spot stage left at the barricade, bruising my hands and knees from their raucous set, which I believe featured the first public performance of “Steal A Yellow Cab,” my favorite of their recent-era singles.
That brings me to last night. I texted my friend that my skinny jeans were on and I was ready to party like it was 2012. I’d already begun to feel the Matt and Kim buzz hours before the show. Like I sometimes do, I ended up following up with a philosophical, Buddha-inspired message, saying: “I’m going to be a small part in the cohesion that is a live music event this evening and I’m very grateful.”
But sometimes a special night with a pair of special artists can make you feel like more than just a small part of the show. In the pit, the energy of dozens of moshing Matt and Kim fans feeds perfectly from the energy we feel from the stage.
And sometimes, when you love a band so dearly, there are elements of the production that seem to be magically tailored to you — such as the unexpected Singin’ in the Rain video intro that opened up the set and a cover of one of my favorite hits from last year, “As It Was” by Harry Styles.
A woman of many talents, there’s a point in the show where Kim crowd surfed all the way to the bar and back without spilling much, if any, of the draft brew poured for her. (I giddily helped her get there, kind of.)
To that point, I would have said, “Wow, this is one of the best shows I’ve ever been to.” But when Matt and Kim appeared in the crowd to start their encore, the case was closed. The cherry on top is they were performing perhaps my favorite song of theirs, “Happy If You’re Happy.”
Before they began, I offered my shirt to a giggling Kim, whose hand was bleeding from her rowdy drumming. The crowd encircled the duo and I just so happened to be smack-dab in the middle, back to the stage and crouched down with my hands on my knees, partly to make it easier for the few behind me to see and also to catch my breath.
When they started the song, I took a full knee, soaking in the moment and smiling ear to ear, snapping my fingers along with the band’s only ballad: You like the city lights / I like the stars at night / If you’re happy in New York / I’ll bring you home. (An L.A. transplant like myself, Kim seems to be coming around more fully on the City of Angels as of late.)
Clocking in at just 1 minute and 49 seconds, the song came and went quickly, but not before I got to sing a couple lines with Matt, the ever-engaging performer whose piercing eye contact a foot away from my face made me later think yet again about being “a small part in the cohesion that is a live music event.”
It’s magical. And so are Matt and Kim.
