Tag: Solo

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Live music galleries

Live music galleries: Matt Berninger [2026]

Matt Berninger at Bronson Music Theatre, Ottawa, March 20th, 2026

Artist: Matt Berninger
When: March 20th, 2026
Where: Bronson Music Theatre, Ottawa
Context: I am interrupting this unplanned mini hiatus in posting* to share a few pics and thoughts of the show I saw on Friday night. My first concert of the year came courtesy of The National frontman and singer/songwriter, Matt Berninger. He announced a cross Canada solo tour with Canadian indie pop songstress Hannah Georgas back in December and I snapped a ticket for the Ottawa stop as soon they went on sale. Ever the showman, Berninger wooed and flirted and engaged with the sold out audience, equally impressing with his ability to make every audience member feel a part of the show, as with the quality of his vocal tones and always incredible narrative lyrics. He and his touring band (who were also integral in the recording of his latest solo album “Get sunk”) performed the entirely of that album, as well as a good part of his debut solo work “Serpentine prison”, before pleasing his National fans with a few tracks from that band’s extensive catalogue and a cover of New Order’s “Blue Monday”. Berninger also invited opener Hannah Georgas out to perform one of The National songs after previously joining her set to sing a song that they had written together during the pandemic. Not too shabby a way to spend the first night of spring at all.
Point of reference song: “Little by little”

Matt Berninger the crooner
Sean O’Brien on guitar
Bassist Garret Lang
Julia Laws and Sterling Laws
Matt and Sean
Matt duetting with Hannah Georgas
Matt Berninger and his band

*I’ll get back to our regularly scheduled programming soon.

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Tunes

100 best covers: #30 Eddie Vedder “You’ve got to hide your love away”

<< #31    |    #29 >>

Well, we’re finally breaking into the top thirty on this list of my favourite ever covers and it’s Pearl Jam frontman doing The Beatles’ “You’ve got to hide your love away”.

This is the fourth cover of a Beatles song we’ve seen on the list so far* and the third track to be pulled from the “I am Sam” soundtrack. In the two previous such posts, I mentioned how the soundtrack for the 2001 film consists solely of Beatles covers, faithful in track length and time signatures, given the filmmakers were not granted the rights to include the originals and that the songs had already been selected for already filmed scenes. It was a brilliant save by the filmmakers and the result is probably a more interesting soundtrack than it might have been, as great as The Beatles’ originals of those seventeen songs were.

It’s no accident that I am timing this post to follow the one counting down albums ten through six in my Best film soundtrack series. If you’ve been following along, you’d know that “I am Sam” didn’t appear as one my honourable mentions back on February 1st, nor was it amongst the latter half of my top ten. And when I saw this particular post on radar to write, I thought I’d take the opportunity to clear the air before moving into the top five – “I am Sam” won’t be one of them. Great concept yes, and some of the renditions were quite successful, but I’d say that almost of half of them were less so, making the whole less than its parts. An uneven listen.

Eddie Vedder’s cover was another one of the bright spots. Faithful to the original, not only in sound but also in spirit, a playful wink of the eye.

Much has been made of the fact that the John Lennon-penned “You’ve got to hide your love away” was his attempt at Bob Dylan. Successful or not, the fourth track on side one of 1965’s “Help” album is Lennon singing solo overtop a bed made of mostly acoustic guitars. Sure there’s a bit of percussion but it’s definitely before Dylan went electric and where Mr. Zimmerman would typically accompany himself with a harmonica, The Beatles opted for some flutes in its place.

Vedder opted for similar ethos with his cover. You can almost imagine him standing on a New York City street corner with a harmonica neck holder around his neck, a kick pedal attached to a high hat at his feet. The production even sounds dusty, DIY, and of a different time.

Lovely stuff indeed. Better than the original? Well…

Cover:

Original:

*The three previous posts were Rufus Wainwright’s “Across the universe” at #90, Cornershop’s “Norwegian wood (this bird has flown” at #69, and Sarah McLachlan’s “Blackbird” at #58.

For the rest of the 100 best covers list, click here.

Categories
Tunes

Eighties’ best 100 redux: #77 Morrissey “Interesting drug” (1989)

<< #78    |    #76 >>

Song #77 on my Eighties’ best 100 list is Morrissey’s fourth solo single, “Interesting drug”.

Stephen Patrick Morrissey was quick in releasing his first solo album, “Viva hate”, less than a year after the dissolution of The Smiths. “Interesting drug” was released the following year in 1989 as a non-album single, though it would be included on the 1990 compilation “Bona drag”. The song features three former members of The Smiths (Rourke, Joyce, and Gannon) as Morrissey’s backing band, as well as the lovely, inimitable backing vocals of Kirsty MacColl*.

I’m near certain that “Interesting drug” was my introduction to Morrissey as a solo artist. It was track number two on a mixed tape (simply titled “Mixed tape”) that my friend Elliott made for me a very long time ago, a friend whom I haven’t seen or heard from in years, but who played an important part in my discovering my own personal musical tastes during my teen years**. I still have said mixed tape packed away in a shoebox in my basement, and though it hasn’t been played in decades, and likely wouldn’t play even if I could find a tape deck to play it on, I doubt very much that I could bring myself to part with it, like the other tapes in that box.

The song, notwithstanding the nostalgia piece, is one of my all-time favourite Morrissey tunes. Likely because it is also one of his more upbeat songs, the music, I mean, not the lyrical subject matter. “Interesting drug” sounds like it could have been a late Smiths track, given the jangly guitars, though the drumming is a bit heavier handed and funkier than most songs by that earlier band. It jumps and cavorts, getting deep under your skin and crawling up and down your spine, while Mr. Morrissey warbles and croons, giving it to the right. He’s defending the use of drugs for release and accusing the conservative government of the day of clamping down on drug use as a means of control.

It’s definitely an… interesting point of view. I didn’t know any of this back in the day but I did appreciate the anti-establishment sentiment. And of course, it had a great beat and I could dance to it.

 

*Spoiler alert: Despite not having her own song on this list, MacColl will likely get a couple more mentions in relation to other songs.

**Indeed, Elliott’s name has appeared a few times on these pages over the years and likely will again.

Original Eighties best 100 position: 80

Favourite lyric: “On a government scheme / Designed to kill your dream ” Does this really need a comment?

Where are they now?: Morrissey is still performing and making music but unfortunately, his career has been sidetracked by controversy of late, much of it of his own making. He just last week announced the upcoming release of a fourteenth studio album, his first since 2020.

For the rest of the Eighties’ best 100 redux list, click here.