The crowd at Nashville’s Marathon Music Works Friday served as a reminder than even the week of the CMA Awards, country music doesn’t have the corner on the market in Music City. The indie electronic duo Matt Johnson and Kim Schifino brought their 10thAnniversary Grand Tour to a full venue of lively fans.
The Frights, an American surf punkband from the San Diego area, opened for Matt and Kim with Mikey Carnevale singing lead vocals and playing guitar along with Marc Finn on drums, Jordan Clark on guitar, and Richard Dotson on bass. Their high energy, high volume set got the crowd going. No one even blinked when a young man entered from back stage, ran around, and exited.
Matt and Kim took the stage like twin Rocky Balboas, working the crowd into a happy frenzy before she settled in behind her drum set and he took his seat at the keyboard. Throughout their performance, a live view of the crowd was projected behind the stage. The duo made clear that this was not just their night to shine.
Kim encouraged people to move in closer, out of the shadows on the side. “We want be able to see you. We’re putting you all in the spotlight,” she told the crowd.
Matt added, waving around the venue, “Tonight’s about what happens in this room.” He encouraged those who planned to dance to push their way to the front.
“It’s okay to get bumped into,” he told the room. “This is a show of love.” Removing his jacket to cheers, he told the audience he’d been expecting cold weather but was ready to shed a layer. Launching into songs fromGrand, Matt turned the mic toward the audience singing along.
The next song from the album, they told the crowd, was perfect for dancing awkwardly—“Like Matt,” Kim clarified, demonstrating his arm waving upper body motion, which the crowd immediately mimicked.
Through the entire high energy show, the duo left not question that the crowd was an important component to the performance, pointing out a guy doing the Macarena. They distributed balloons for the audience members to blow up and bat around, shot confetti into the air, and told people in the back without balloons at the count of 1—2—3—4, “Throw anybody next to you into the air.”
When they introduced “Don’t Slow Down,” they mentioned a MMA fighter who plays it as her fight song.
From the first song, the crowd danced, leaped, pulsed, and flailed along with the two performers, who at times appeared to be leading a high-speed Zoomba class. Before performing “Spare Change,” Matt demonstrated the stomp—clap—stomp—snap moves for the audience, encouraging even those “rhythm challenged like myself” to join in. What he lacked in rhythm, he make up in energy, at times standing on his stool with one leg up in the air behind him. Kim often emerged from the drum set to pump up the crowd. The Grand set was punctuated by what Matt called “a really terrible Powerpoint” with pictures of Matt’s childhood home in Vermont and the view from his bedroom window of “nothing—just nature,” as Kim pointed out, along with pictures of the two—much younger and charmingly awkward.
Matt and Kim finished the first set with the final song from the album, “Daylight Outro,” with Kim directing the crowd in a sing-along.
Remarking, “I think this is the best Nashville crowd we’ve ever had!” Matt reassured fans before the brief intermission that Grand is just the warm-up, as the two left the stage just long enough for stage hands to bring on stacks of large colorful innertubes that were soon floating across the room as the duo kept up their high intensity show and the audience burned enough calories to satisfy anyone’s Fitbit count.
MATT & KIM
THE FRIGHTS
photos by: Johnny Giles