leagues & mat kearney / 11.01.2011

last tuesday, in the middle of the power-outage mess, leah and i headed up to massachusetts to see leagues & mat kearney play. best decision i ever made. this show was so much fun and so needed. since i seem to be incapable of forming actual paragraphs this week, here's a list of highlights from the show:

• seeing leagues play was so exciting because i remember when they first formed the band and everyone i follow on twitter kept tweeting about them and i finally downloaded their ep from noisetrade and eventually listened to it and LOVED it.
• they're so great live, by the way. you can tell they just have so much fun on stage. and they played a bunch of new songs that makes me rather impatient for their full-length album to come out!
• they also have this really attractive bass player who makes really great facial expressions when he sings. oh, and he can also whistle really well. he played for mat too, so he was on stage all night. which was probably my favorite part.
• mat's performance was pretty much amazing. he basically had mini conversations with us in between songs and a couple of times, he changed the lyrics to go along with what we had just talked about.
• at one point, he sang and walked through the crowd, giving random hugs and high fives and handshakes. so great! leah said he did that at the last show she went to, which i think is so great.
• there was one point where he forgot the lyrics to one of his songs and another point when he had us singing this "ooo" part, but we didn't know we were supposed to stop, so we kept going and when he started singing again, he said, "it's my turn now!"
• leagues came out towards the end and sang "pumped up kicks" with mat, which was SO great.
• after the show was over, we waited to say hi to leagues and buy some merch. i wanted a t-shirt (because i'm a band-shirt addict) and leah wanted a poster. while we were waiting, i heard some girl ask one of mat's people if he would be coming out. his response? "probably not. i mean, unless you wait by his bus."
• we chatted with mike from leagues for a few minutes while we got our stuff and he gave leah their very last poster, right out of the display frame, because she's a "legit fan" and sang along during their set, which mike was super impressed with.
• we waited our turn to get autographs and a picture, but that meant we ended up being the last to leave the show. (entirely not on purpose, i promise.) by the time it was our turn, the drummer had gone back to the stage to start packing stuff up, so i had to go find him to get his autograph on my free cd that i got with my shirt. i was reassured that i was allowed to do this, so i went for it.
• on my way back to the stage, i ran into mat. i gasped (in typical sarah fashion), my jaw dropped, and i said, "HI! can i get a picture with you really quick?" so i got a picture. with MAT KEARNEY. i still can't believe it.
• here's the proof: