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 cover of the Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage” Then Foreman did the walk through the crowd thing, singing “This Is Your Life,” a song from 2004’s platinum-selling, career-making album “The Beautiful Letdown”, moving into the “California fireside song” “Live It Well.” And Foreman made a kid named Miles’ night or probably year by answering the question he’d held up on a sign “Can I play ‘The Sound (John M. Perkins Blues) with you" in the affirmative.
Picking up Foreman’s guitar, Miles did a more than respectable job on the chugging rocker — “We’ve got a new band member, you all,” Foreman said. “Miles, that was incredible.” Surprise number two came about 45 minutes into Switchfoot’s set when Foreman took up a ukulele and sang a lovely version of Louis Armstrong’s What a Wonderful World” intercut a verse of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.
” Switchfoot wrapped with a couple of hits with Foreman jumping into the audience to let fans sing the “whoa ohs” on the anthemic Christian-music charting “Where I Belong” before the heavy driving closer “Meant to Live.” By the time Blue October took the stage at 9 p.m.
, the sun had set behind the pine trees on the west side of the bowl and about 2,000 were on their feet for the band most had come to hear. Screaming “Lincoln” singer Justin Furstenfeld launched the quintet into the thundering “Daylight” punctuating the heavy bass and gang with cries of “Nebraska.” That started a take-no-prisoners set that had Blue October cramming more than a dozen songs into 80 minutes.
“I just want to play as many songs as I can,” said Furstenfeld, who lived here for three years. “I want to rock with you. I love you Lincoln.
” Then came the Melodic “Fight For Love,” the semi-spoken, “Let the Rain Come Down,” the soaring “Everything We Lost in the Fire” and the uplifting mid-tempo “Leave Room For a Miracle” with violin solo as the veteran alt-rock quintet showed off its stylistic versatility. The acoustic-rooted “Hate Me,” one of the rawest of Furstenfeld’s brutally honest songs became a singalong on the chorus as fans who made the 2007 song Blue October’s biggest hit locked in with the singer. Things got livelier with the bouncy “Oh My My,” and the catchy “Shut Up I Want You To Love Me Back” as the band flew toward the end of the too-short set — a rush that was interrupted by a gorgeous violin/acoustic guitar number.
I’ve got no idea how many times I’ve seen Blue October in 25 years since the Houston band started coming to Nebraska. But I know they’ve never been better than they were Wednesday. Reach the writer at 402-473-7244 or kwolgamott@journalstar.
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