It’s somewhat strange that, after three years working at a place that switches to flexible hours during the summer, I haven’t found a proper way to take advantage of the fact that I don’t have to work most Fridays between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Through Mark at the Long Cut, I knew of WXPN’s Free at Noon Concert series, but I never thought it would be worth my afternoon to take advantage.

At least, that is, before Matt Nathanson came to town.

When I went to Nathanson’s concert at the TLA last year, I was still new to his music; since then, I’ve become something of an obsessive fan. I recently begged his new record label, Vanguard, to send me a copy of his forthcoming album Some Mad Hope for review on Blogcritics.org (I’ll put that up here later this week), and I have spent hours on his fan sites, downloading taped concerts and becoming more familiar with his catalog.

Friday’s concert was made up entirely of track from the new album, all of which sound spectacular live. Nathanson even managed to slip in some of his trademark humor, cleaned up for the public airwaves. He was very complimentary to the audience, WXPN, and Philadelphia in general. After the concert, he held a meet and greet where he spoke to every person in a relatively long line. When I met him, he was very genuine and nice; traits that are always good to have when you’re a small artist building a fan base.

NPR is streaming the concert here. If you’re familiar with my voice, you can definitely hear my voice just before Nathanson plays “Detroit Waves.” I am one of the people who “woo” when he says the song is about Detroit, because I know what the song is. I also took about 100 pictures of the show, 25 of which were good enough to post on Flickr.

Friday night I spent some time with the folks from A List of Things Thrown Five Minutes ago, attending a 1776 sing-along and blogger after-party at Lucy’s Hat Shop (my suggestion). All in all, it was perhaps the best Friday I’ve had in a long time.

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