POP MUSIC
Monday, November 15, 2004; Page C05
Matthew Sweet
Matthew Sweet, making what he said was his first local performance in four years, ignored both the clock and Father Time while delivering a grungily great set Saturday at the 9:30 club.
The room was double-booked for the night, and Sweet drew the early straw, so he was onstage before 7 p.m. That's an hour when a performer of his vintage and volume would normally be rolling out of bed for a sound check and audiences aren't typically lubricated enough to let their inner rockers out. Also, it has been years since Sweet, who recently turned 40, has had a major-label deal or had been able to get pop radio to play anything but his old solo material.
As could be expected, Sweet's early-1990s tunes -- "Divine Intervention," "Evangeline" and "Someone to Pull the Trigger" among them -- garnered the most huzzahs from the crowd, which increased in size and intensity during the two-hour show. Pete Phillips, the latest in a line of artfully noisy guitarists Sweet has worked with, worked fuzzy wonders while soloing madly on "You Don't Love Me." Despite having more endings than "Shear Madness," the still-divine "Sick of Myself" had fans singing along to the last note.
Yet the tunes Sweet introduced from his two most recent, self-released CDs, "Living Things" and "Kimi Ga Suki," didn't wilt alongside their elders. Of the newbies, "In My Tree" and "Ocean in Between," both of which recall Tommy Keene at his most cacophonous, packed the biggest aural wallop.
Sweet left the stage after delivering his two best psychotic romance tunes: "Superdeformed" melded the themes of "Beauty and the Beast" and "Silence of the Lambs" over Stooges-esque power chords, while during the deceptively dark "Girlfriend" he screamed the climactic lyrics ("And I'm never gonna set you free!") with such melodic force that listeners were powerless but to scream the stalker-friendly line with him. Signs that he's preparing for his post-rock life were all over the concession stand, where "raku-fired" ceramic ashtrays and vases said to be made by Sweet were available for between $35 and $125.
