Just after 6 p.m. Wednesday, Matt Nathanson was on the Pinewood Bowl stage, mixing snippets of songs by Poison, Warrant and Bon Jovi with his pop-rock numbers as the crowd filtered in.
By 6:45 p.m., the affable, metal-loving singer-songwriter had abandoned the stage — and his guitar — walking up the aisles and singing to the piano, bass and drums on “Headphones,” a song, appropriately enough, about loving music more than people.
Standing on a chair at the back of the half-house setup — “I feel like Sinatra” — Nathanson sang “Bill Murray,” a quiet little piece about the actor — “I’ve never met him,” he said. “I think he thinks I’m stalking him.” High-fiving fans along the way, Nathanson returned to the stage, for his “grocery store” song.
So began the Help From My Friends tour show — three-hour sets by, in order, Nathanson, Switchfoot and Blue October. Blue October landed the closing slot — and by crowd reaction and T-shirts, drew the most fans — because it is the most popular of the trio in Lincoln. But Nathanson, who called himself Mike Nickerson throughout his set, was the perfect opener — funny, engaging and carrying a passel of smartly written songs, like the new romantic ballad “Pablo Picasso,” crowd favorite “Used To Be” and singalong — led by an 8-year-old girl, “Suspended.
” Switchfoot cranked the heavy up a notch, with the two guitar stomp of “Dark Horses” and the first surprise of the night, a righteous .