{"id":938,"date":"2010-05-27T20:22:00","date_gmt":"2010-05-27T20:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/?p=938"},"modified":"2026-06-27T20:23:47","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T20:23:47","slug":"matt-pond-pa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/?p=938","title":{"rendered":"Matt Pond PA"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

May 2010, 40 Watt, Athens, Ga.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hot here,\u201d Matt Pond said early in his set. \u201cBut I know I shouldn\u2019t complain, so thank you for the heat, I appreciate the heat.\u201d<\/p>\n

In reality, it wasn\u2019t really too hot yet (as someone in the audience pointed out), but all was pretty cool and breezy inside the Watt as Matt Pond and his collaboration of players put together a solid set of folk-pop tunes for a sparse crowd.<\/p>\n

With eight LPs and seven EPs to choose from (I had no idea he had so many), Pond flowed from upbeat to quiet during his hour and 15-minute set, mixing conversation between songs about the weather, the end of college and his love for Athens band The Glands \u2014 \u201cone of the best bands ever, these are facts\u201d Pond remarked.<\/p>\n

On this night, Matt and bandmates were out promoting The Dark Leaves<\/em>, an album released in April 2010 which has Pond\u2019s usual display of jangly guitars with a certain comfort (Brooklyn Fawn comes to mind). The band played several selections from the album (\u201cRunning Wild\u201d one of the highlights), as well as songs from Last Light, Several Arrows Later<\/em> and Emblems<\/em> (including \u201cNew Hampshire,\u201d a great song).<\/p>\n

It is Several Arrows Later<\/em> where I first picked up Matt Pond PA, it is I think his best work with some of his strongest songs (and he did play \u201cSo Much Trouble,\u201d \u201cFrom Debris\u201d and the excellent \u201cHalloween\u201d), though I found The Dark Leaves<\/em> to be a close second. It is a tough grind in the music business, and I did get the sense from Pond onstage that the whole process has him a bit worn down (\u201cAthens, we\u2019re in Athens, right?\u201d he mentioned early in the set).<\/p>\n

While I did expect more of an audience, May can be a quiet time in Athens, but those who chose to stay home missed a proper set of music by a talented individual. While Matt seemed a bit forlorn, the passion in the songs and performance was there, and the night proved a winning one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

May 2010, 40 Watt, Athens, Ga. \u201cIt\u2019s hot here,\u201d Matt Pond said early in his set. \u201cBut I know I shouldn\u2019t complain, so thank you for the heat, I appreciate the heat.\u201d In reality, it wasn\u2019t really too hot yet (as someone in the audience pointed out), but all was pretty cool and breezy inside […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":907,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[45,158],"class_list":["post-938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-concerts","tag-40-watt","tag-matt-pond-pa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=938"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":939,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938\/revisions\/939"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}