NonPopulus

This is a good sign. I was hoping he'd be doing a few shows at the summer events this year. The theater tours are an ideal setting to see him play, but I still love getting out in the summer and rocking out no matter what he plays. I hope K-Days books him.

Check your messages and we'll set something up.

Yeah, Prime Time Deliverece into this is one of the best one two punches in Matt's catalogue. The Inescapable Us has a beautiful vocal performance.

I know that a member of the audience in Courtenay jeered him right before Born Losers and that show isn't up there either. Matt didn't really speak to the audience after putting the guy in his place. People really lack sensitivity. Paying to see a human being play live music doesn't give them the right to hurl masked insults at the stage, especially when they don't know the person's personal history. Well, I'm not upset at the lack of some cities, just curious.

The final tracks are up! Does anyone know why some of the cities didn't get the Live Road treatment in the end? I thought that was the idea. Maybe some venues didn't allow it or some presented a difficult recording environment?

I think you guys have done especially well changing the order and variety of the setlists lately, averaging around 16 songs from a pool of 25. I think the new album is getting some great live exposure that it deserves and some of the older classics are still avoiding saturation. For example, you've just recently reintroduced Everything is Automatic for the first time this tour and we're around 20 shows in. Load Me Up is a staple, but The Future is X-Rated and Hello Time Bomb have only been added sparingly. I was curious what would happen with the short rehearsal time and I don't think you're disappointing. I was out in Ontario for one show and I thought the performance you put on rocked pretty hard and the band was excellent. I was going to start singling certain instruments out, but I can't because everyone is playing so well. Even changing the openers, closers, and adding in the occasional surprise when you have the time to rehearse in soundcheck is working well. If you pulled out Born to Kill at any of the three remaining shows I'm attending, my mind would probably explode. Furthermore, I'd be up for any acoustic show. I made it down to Seattle last year and it ended up being one of the best nights of my life. If it's feasible, you should release the entire tour you're currently on. I'm not sure how you could make it happen, but everything has sounded great so far, and you're clearly not afraid to release unaltered live recordings. If you charged a nominal fee for a full show, we'd be ecstatic - any tour, I'm sure. What a great memento!

Guns of Carolina is so awesome! My favorite yet. I want the variety, but I'm a little sad he cut Guns. Haha. You can't win 'em all, I guess.

I did enjoy the opening trifecta of While We Were Hunting Rabbits, Lights of Endangered Species, and The Boy Who Could Explode.

Well, after listening to Guns of Carolina on Live Road, I can understand why he's closed with it at nearly 90% of the shows. It has great atmosphere.

I noticed that. Just like that, he throws a couple more songs into the shuffle. Good on him for adding a couple more songs into the rotation. I enjoy his cover of True Love and Giant is always welcome. I really like how it's right up front with the other rockers. I'm really looking forward to my first show in about two weeks now.

I think I have to agree with you. I'm not a career musician or an expert at what it takes to run a tour financially or logistically by any stretch of the imagination, but for those who travel to see multiple shows on this tour, I think it would be fair to see a little more variety in the setlist other than changing the order slightly. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it would be fairly easy to learn a song in a sound check just to throw in a surprise here and there.

First show without Load Me Up!

Arrows of Desire finally gets its debut as an opener, which makes complete sense. Same format, but probably a rocking show nonetheless. It's one thing to sit here analyzing song titles on a screen, another to be at the show rocking out.

Now that there's an off-night on this tour after four consecutive shows, does anyone think something about the setlist will change tomorrow? Champions of Nothing in, try a new opener?

With the rumbling intro, I can see why it would make an especially great opener.

Haha. I did this tonight too, actually. I made separate sheets for main set openers and closers, and encore openers and closers. Setlist.fm will automatically generate an average setlist, but the songs aren't always in the correct order.

Letters in Wartime from Moncton is up now! Sounding awesome so far!

I think closing with Guns of Carolina would be as effective as closing with Set Me On Fire. At first, I thought Guns was kind of anticlimactic in the sense that it wasn't as dynamic as Set Me On Fire, but after listening closely on good speakers under stained glass lighting, I can really see it.

October 17, Saint John Letters In Wartime / Last Parade / The Future Is X-Rated / So Close / Hey Hell Heaven / Had It Coming / Weapon / Born Losers / Non Populus / Arrows Of Desire / Mutineering / While We Were Hunting Rabbits / Apparitions / Encore / Garden Of Knives / Load Me Up / Guns Of Carolina Fun! Letters in Wartime seems like a pretty cool opener - pretty long, but I think it has a journeyesque quality to it. We also lose Via Dolorosa and We're Long Gone for a couple older tracks. I don't mind the absence of Alert Status Red, the old standard he injected last night.

October 16, Moncton Mutineering / Hey Hell Heaven / Load Me Up / Arrows Of Desire / Letters In Wartime / Born Losers / Non Populus / Had It Coming / We're Long Gone / While We Were Hunting Rabbits / Alert Status Red / Weapon / Garden Of Knives / Encore / Apparitions / Via Dolorosa / Guns Of Carolina Hey Hell Heaven gets its live debut tonight. So Close gets a seat in the press box. Nice to see the order changed and again, nice to see Matt and the band loving the new material.

Which song do you think he might be referring to in the Lithium article? "Matt: There was one song I toyed around with at the early stages of the demos, I tossed it right away, I was like: ‘Meh’. Zach: So basically a very streamlined writing for this one? Matt: (drinking tea) Mmhhmm! It was like that for “Lights,” too with the exception of one song. I kind of just write what I needed." - See more at: http://lithiummagazine.com/interview-matthew-good-august-28-2013#sthash.a1hEoj7Z.dpuf I wonder if there was an additional completed song that didn't make it, and if so if it was one of the demos we've heard. If I were an artist, I don't know how I'd feel about fans setting their sights on old demo material when I had a new album, but I love Arrows of Desire, and I'd love to hear anything that might be laying around on hard drives or on tapes somewhere. I'm sure it would all be amazing to us.

It's between this and We Are a Place for songs I'd most like to hear completed versions of from the Light of Endandgered Species era demos. This is just such a great track. The lyrics you have look good to me. It's what I hear, anyhow.

So Close from Belleville is up on the Live Road page. It sounds good - pretty raw, which doesn't bother me one bit. I hear a lot of passion in the second verse vocals there too. Ha. Nice to hear something up so quickly from the first show!

I don't think Hey Hell Heaven was passed over on this setlist because he hates it. It was just the unfortunate song that didn't receive a debut yet. He said he was aiming for 7 Arrows of Desire songs per night, which he hit and exceeded. I expect to see the number of Arrows songs fluctuate. We'll see as the tour progresses. I'm glad he started off with a bold statement that he doesn't need to play all of the hits to appease casual fans.

October 14, Belleville, Ontario, Canada Garden Of Knives / Arrows Of Desire / So Close / Via Dolorosa / While We Were Hunting Rabbits / Born Losers / Non Populus / Had It Coming / We're Long Gone / Mutineering / Weapon / Letters In Wartime / Encore / Apparitions / Load Me Up / Guns Of Carolina The only song they didn't play from the new album was Hey Hell Heaven, which is my favorite, but I definitely like the fact that Matt focused a lot of attention on his new material. It's a welcome departure from some of the summer open air shows crammed with setlist staples, which seems inevitable in those environments.