Recomposer: Berkeley

You didn’t think the Matches Recomposer tour would end without a stop in the Bay Area, did you? It came a few months late, but the band played the 10-year-old Decomposer in its entirety at the UC Theater in Berkeley in November, after the rest of the tour started and concluded in June.

      

The backdrop of the show matched my shirt.

     

Michelle, on the other hand, put a lot of time and effort into her outfit for the show. She made a GORGEOUS Decomposer dress by hand. I absolutely adore it. (She made the sunglasses too.)

Shawn’s wife Lauren was socializing with my crew before the show started. She wanted to “cheers” with our drinks, but when she noticed I didn’t have one, I told her I was trying not to spend any money on alcohol. She’s the sweetest and brought me back a beer so we could cheers.

How many people can say the wife of one of their favorite musicians of the past decade has bought them a beer? Every once in a while I’m reminded how truly I lucky I am, especially to have the Matches as one of my bands. They are honestly the best.

Nina and Alanna had basically matching purses and it was completely unintentional. Amazing.

They never repeat openers, so this show had frontman Shawn Harris’s favorite new artist Tim de Vil on support, as well as Talkie.

Shawn had been blasting his social media about Tim de Vil, but I never got around to listening to him before the show. He caught me by surprise in the best kinda way. His lyrics were GOLD.

Nina: “Did he read my diary?”

Overall he killed it and I would definitely look him up and/or see him again.

In all honesty, I didn’t realize what band was even playing until all of a sudden I hear Shawn screaming along behind my crew in the crowd. He is Tim de Vil’s Number 1 fan. Of course he’s gonna be part of the crowd for his set.

After Tim de Vil was Talkie. They weren’t bad, but I couldn’t tell what style of music they were aiming for and it seemed like the whole band took turns doing lead vocals. I’ve seen that done well before, but for some reason it just felt inconsistent to me and I wasn’t sure how to take their set.

Shawn was still in the crowd when those first few notes of Precomposer started playing. It’s almost a joke at this point I’ve seen him do that so many times, but still, we all yelled at him that he had somewhere to be.

“Salty Eyes” was starting, we know the drill.

Kyle: “Are we all waltzing?”
Me: “Yes!”

Then Nina and I kinda-ish waltz but no one else really followed suit. Meh. This keeps happening.

Going in album order (duh), “Papercut Skin” came third. Ex-guitar tech Ben the Triangle Man Young jumped onstage like an animal. I was so confused until I realized it was him and his triangle. He puts so much energy and passion into playing that thing, it’s amazing. It’s not an instrument you see played with so much heart very often. Now he is my favorite human. I want to be him when I grow up.

I mentioned being sick at We Bleed Audio a few nights before, and I was unfortunately still dying at this show too. Boo. The greatest irony of all is me dying during “Sunburn vs. the Rhinorvirus,” a song with a line in the chorus of “I blow my brains out through my nose.”

The Matches manager Pablo is another one of the greatest humans I know, and he raced out to my spot on the barricade with a water bottle when he saw me dying. So incredibly sweet. He told me he’d take care of me at my first ever Matches show, and he hasn’t stopped since. He’s kinda the best band manager ever.

WHY IS EVERYONE CONNECTED TO THE MATCHES THE GREATEST HUMAN EVER?!

Between “Lazier than the Furniture” and “Didi (My Doe, pt. 2)“…

Shawn: “I think I had a burned copy of Decomposer… from Limewire. What’s the next song?”
Me: “Jack Slap Cheer!”
Shawn: “C-c-c-conversations with my bathroom mirror…”

What does it say about me that I even know what random song he’s gonna throw into the middle of a setlist that’s supposed to be an album straight through? That can’t be normal.

There’s this great part in “Didi” where two different lines are sung at the same time. Shawn had the crowd harmonizing on it, and it was beautiful.

And the same as on the summer mini-tour, they changed the ending of “You (Don’t) Know Me,” where instead of it being a fade-out, Shawn sings the chorus solo and then cuts the song. It’s different, but I love it.

“Shoot Me in the Smile” was the only song I was able to get video of myself because the crowd was so rough. (Good, I like when the crowd’s insane. We all clearly love this band a lot.) But I didn’t think I got any video of it over the summer, and it’s one of my favorites. It was the first song I heard by them after looking them up on MySpace back in the day.

At the conclusion of the last song on Decomposer, “The Barber’s Unhappiness,” the boys left the stage for a short time before coming back to encore.

They played “Dog-Eared Page” and “Audio Blood,” which got the perfect crouch from the crowd.

“If you like ‘Dog-Eared Page’ and ‘Audio Blood,’ I’m sure you’ll also like this!”

Followed immediately by “Chain Me Free,” off the same album (E. Von Dahl Killed the Locals).

They also played “December is for Cynics” because:

“It’s almost December.”

As well as “Yankee in a Chip Shop.”

At some point during the encore, Brent Walsh of I the Mighty crowdsurfs right over my head. Nina pointed him out to me, and as he’s walking away from the stage area, I get his attention and he kisses me on the cheek before running off. Then my friend Jackson (drummer of Serf & James) follows him pretty closely behind.

I’d been on the barricade for the entirety of Decomposer, so it was about time to head back toward Brent and Jackson to mosh some.

But before that happened, Shawn picks up a setlist and pretends to read it before throwing it in our general direction. It didn’t make it past a speaker, and we were all stuck behind the barricade, but my friends to the rescue: Nina and a few others picked me up by my legs so I could grab it.

“Aww crap, only three songs left!”

It’s about time to migrate back into the pit, but Shawn made it even easier for me to make that call.

Shawn: “I’m changing the script.”

He grabs his equipment and has Jon do the same, and they climbed down into the middle of the pit so they could play “Scratched Out” right in the midst of all the fans like old times, but in the pit rather than on a sidewalk.

Of course this was a perfect excuse for me to finally give up my spot on the barricade. It was a super tight squeeze, but we gave them enough space so that we didn’t break anything. I was having a concern about that honestly.

You can see Jon and Brent hugging in that video. Cute moment.

There was a little girl sitting on someone’s shoulders and she took the mic to sing some. It was really cute. I love absurdly young fans. Hell, I got into music at 11. I wish that was where I was back then.

We both meowed and hummed along with the song, and it was beautiful.

The two of them go back to the stage to play their newest song, “Life of a Match.” It’s a slower one, so no one’s moshing (thank god… that was not the case in Atlanta over the summer), and soon Brent’s behind me hugging me. Oh hey dude, finally found you again.

The last song on the setlist was the song they always close with, so we all knew what was coming. “Sick Little Suicide.” This definitely IS a moshing song. During the short downtime between the two, I’m joking about how I’m gonna open the pit if no one else does, but then the pit opens on its own…prematurely. And not safely? The Bay Area gets rowdy. I was not prepared. All at once I couldn’t breathe and it was just pure chaos. I love the chaos, but I had to watch it behind a layer of people rather than be all up in it, as much as I wanted to. For once I couldn’t deal.

Shawn (to me and Kyle): “If you guys weren’t at a show, I’d quit playing music.”

I’d spent most of the night with my Matches crew from around the country, but when the show ended I found my Bay Area crew. My friend Emily supposedly had some extra backstage passes, but she ran out before finding one for me. Always with a plan, I see Pat (who edited the trailer for Bleeding Audio) and ask if I can have his pass since he’s not staying. He said I could, but he wanted to say bye to people first. Naturally, I lose him. Immediately.

Well there goes that plan.

So I start running around like a chicken with my head cut off. Because of course I do.

I run to merch where I intended on buying three shirts, and find that they’ve run out of my size in two of them. Boo. So I only get the one.

I also met a very drunk guy named Sean at merch who told me that he just discovered that he works with bassist Justin San Souci that day. How did you just figure that out?! I don’t understand.

Justin now does art for a video game company, and turns out Sean was a fan back in the day, but not to the point of knowing what the band members look like. He sees Justin every day, but never put two and two together that it was the same Justin from the Matches. So that was pretty cool.

After I bought my shirt, I raced back into the venue where security was trying to clear everyone out. I still hadn’t found a pass for myself, but I told them I was with the group who DID all have passes. They vouched for me, but then Nina was trying to sneak in too, and it was hard enough convincing him not to throw me out. I wish I could’ve gotten us all in. Or at least that they would’ve let us stay a little longer.

There was still one more layer of venue security right at the door to backstage, but I’ve done this enough times at this point. I’ve got a system. Go in with two people who both have backstage passes to flash, and kinda sneak by them. This will either do one of two things: A) They assume you have a pass too because you’re with them, or B) They don’t even notice you because they’re too distracted by the other people.

Of course there’s a pass just chilling in the green room, so I take that and I’m finally officially allowed back there. Schweet.

     

Some fans made rice krispy treats and I saw two containers full of them. I definitely ate more than anyone else did, and I got made fun of for it. Hey, somebody’s gotta eat ’em, right?

Brent: “I almost kicked you in the head crowdsurfing.”
Me: “It’s cool, I’ve kicked plenty of people in my life.”

I also talked a little bit with Bleeding Audio director Chelsea Christer and her mom.

Chelsea’s mom: “I’ve seen you at… every Matches show I’ve been to.”
Chelsea: “That’s Lindsay!”

Shawn disappeared during the after party. I didn’t even notice him peace out. Then the venue kicked all of us out pretty quickly.

Quickly enough that Nina and Nicole and Kyle were all still outside when we made it out there. I was so happy I got to say goodbye to my Matches fam! Matches reunions are the best.

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The Matches are one of those bands that I feel like I talk about enough, so my apologies if I left out any pertinent information about who they are as a band. Just know that you want to see them live. I promise. They’ve been one of my favorites for a little over a decade now, and realistically, they are the band that got me started on hardcore going to every show that I think I might want to see. And they’re the reason I first visited San Francisco, where I now live. Life-changers, dude. That’s what this band is to me.