September 29, 2007 Mat Kearney Agganis Arena Boston, MA
An unremarkable twenty-minute set featured Undeniable, his breakout single, and Breathe In, Breathe Out which he introduced as “a song for doctors to make out to” because it was picked up by Grey’s Anatomy. But it didn’t matter because nothing in Mat Kearney’s set stood out. Kearney and his band seemed fixed in place. Granted, it was a tight space, a small stage to begin with and two bands’ worth of instruments still packed away behind them. But there was something decidedly perfunctory about the whole affair. Rather than embracing a chance to play for a crowd who was less familiar with him, he seemed to be just putting in the time until the next act.
Kearney called out Boston a number of times within the songs, modifying a short interlude during Undeniable to rap about MixFest, the Red Sox and Boston. The crowd cheered, but he might as well have yelled “Yankees sucked” because it wasn’t the music they were reacting to. A few points for stage presence, but charming, he was not.