Author: Bridget Benevides
Header: Photo by Taylor Conran
If you read my preview, you know I was highly anticipating seeing Matoma at The Neptune last week. As expected, the concert was great. I am not going to lie, leading up to the concert I was kind of in a funk, Winter Quarter is really testing me so I was feeling sluggish as I got ready to head to The Neptune Theater on Friday. But I stood quietly in the back and bopped calmly and watched other concert goers enjoy themselves and I ended up smiling for the whole night.
The night began with a performance from Griffin Stoller. Griffin Stoller is a 22-year-old DJ/producer based out of San Francisco, California. Known initially as an award winning violinist with a Carnegie Hall debut at age 16, he has recently exploded onto the Dance Music scene with a flurry of chart topping originals on Soundcloud and Spotify. (All these talented young musicians are out here making names for themselves and touring the US and I’m here eating corndogs for breakfast and trying to stay awake past 9pm– kudos to you talented young musicians.) I knew of Stoller’s music because of his songs “Vibes” and “Not Alone” which have been on my playlists for a few months now, so getting to see these live and seeing him play violin as well as sing was quite fun. Check out his video for “Not Alone” on YouTube to see him play that violin so sweet and smooth.
Next to the stage was Sigala. Sigala is Bruce Fielder, a London-based house DJ, producer, and remixer. Born and raised in Norfolk, England, Fielder began piano as a child, and played in various bands after graduating university. His first solo single as Sigala was “Easy Love,” an energetic house tune built around a sample of the Jackson 5’s iconic hit “ABC.” In 2018, Sigala brought together ten of his previously released singles, as well as a handful of album tracks, to make up his debut studio album, Brighter Days. His music is pretty bouncy and upbeat, he incorporates different instrumentals like trumpet sounds, lots of bass, drums and catchy lyrics. His music was easy to listen to and bop along with, and all in all I enjoyed it.
Finally at about 11pm Matoma came on. The crowd was energetic and excited and he matched our energy, saying he was happy to be in Seattle. He played a lot of songs off his new album “One In A Million”, my favorite being “False Alarm”. He added special little tweaks here and there so we weren’t just hearing the songs verbatim from his online album. He didn’t change them too much though, which I appreciated because sometimes artists change up my favorite songs and I feel like I miss out on my favorite song and get some sort of remix. I bet playing the same stuff over and over gets repetitive though so I can imagine that adding little spins on their tracks is fun for them on stage.
Matoma has a great energy, and was very charismatic on stage. He definitely seemed like he was having fun on stage which I love to see.
BRIDGET BENEVIDES * Here is a cute puppy video. | KXSU Music Reporter