Photos: Matchbox Twenty at Starlight

June 20, 2023

Chris Ortiz,

Matchbox Twenty at Starlight. // Photo by Chris Ortiz

Matchbox Twenty appeared at Starlight Theater on Sunday to a packed but not sold-out house. The concert that was originally supposed to happen in 2020, but was postponed three times due to the pandemic, was one that was with a little sorrow. Fans who had tickets for the 2020 and the 2022 shows waited in long but fast-moving lines at the box offices to get their new tickets for the night’s show. It seemed that most had bought their tickets through a third-party website like StubHub and were informed that the exchange could simply happen at the gate on the day of the show.

The other bit of bad news was that Jakob Dylan and The Wallflowers were originally set to open on the tour, but because The Wallflowers were now scheduled for their own tour later this summer, Matt Nathanson and his band took over the opening slot. Knowing that some of the audience would be aware of this fact, he jokingly came out on stage with his band and announced to the crowd, “Hello every, I’m Jakob Dylan, and we are The Wallflowers, and this is our hit ‘One Headlight,’” before playing his opening song, “Giants.” At one point in the set, Nathanson ventured out into the crowd, talked, and took selfies with folks before returning to the stage.

Rob Thomas, Brian Yale, and company took the stage about 20 minutes after their 8:45 p.m. scheduled appearance. Some of the crowd grew antsy as they waited for the headlining act to appear.

The set list consisted of 19 songs plus a 4-song encore. Nathanson’s set consisted of 10 songs, including snips of songs by AC/DC and others and backstories about songs such as “Bill Murray.”

Matchbox Twenty