Rob Thomas canโt help but feel a bit jinxed whenever he and Counting Crows frontman Adam Duritz get together.
โI donโt know what it is, man, but with me and Adam, we have the weirdest things happen,โ the Matchbox Twenty lead singer/songwriter said during a phone call last week. โLike on the last tourโ โ his solo outing last summer with the Crows โ โwe had to cancel a show because a giant storm had taken a fan blade at the top of the auditorium and broke it and then flew it up under the rafters and they were afraid it was going to come down and fall on the crowd. So they had to cancel the show.โ
He was calling last Tuesday from the San Francisco Bay area, where he and his 22-year-old pop band were getting ready to do a makeup concert at the Shoreline Amphitheatre after they had to pull out of a scheduled July 21 gig. Damage to a road near the venue made it impossible to bring their trucks and equipment to the venue, Thomas said.
โIโve never had it happen before where a show got cancelled โ well, Iโve never had a show get cancelled for a sinkhole, ever โ and we just happened to have a day off less than a week later that we could fit it into and make that happenโ said Thomas, noting that their tour mates, Counting Crows, couldnโt make the makeup due to a prior commitment. โI think (Durst) and I together just have some weird mojo.โ
Matchbox Twenty, which hasnโt toured together since 2013, has been on the road with Counting Crows since the two bands launched their co-headlining โA Brief History of Everything World Tourโ in Spokane, Washington, on July 12. The tour runs through Oct. 1.
On off dates, Thomas and his bandmates are sneaking in headlining shows, starting Thursday, Aug. 3, at the AVA at Casino del Sol. Pop singer-songwriter Matt Nathanson opens.
During our phone call with Thomas last week, we asked what we can expect on Thursday and whether the band, which split briefly in spring 2016 before reuniting in March 2017, was planning to record any new material.
Itโs like we never left: โEverywhere we go we get to play music. Everywhere you go youโve got this group of warm people that are welcoming and really nice. I think we have a very biased and skewed version of the world. We think everybodyโs really nice and just loves people because we go places and we have an initiated group of people to see us. โWow, people are nice all over.โ And my wifeโs like, โNo theyโre not. Theyโre really not.โโ
Cheers to the past: โItโs right at or a little past the 20th anniversary of our first record (1996โs โYourself or Someone Like Youโ) and right at the 20th anniversary of our first single that really ever hit when โPushโ came out. So this is just kind of us wanting to go out and to celebrate the idea that for 20 years, weโve managed to be able to go out on the road and have people still wanting to come see us play.โ
Packing 20 years into two hours: โWhen youโve got 20 years of hits there are some things that arenโt going to make it. You want to get all of the singles in, but at the end of the day weโre in the hospitality industry. We have a group of people there who are hardcore, initiated fans and know every deep album cuts. Then we have a lot of fans that were just casual fans that want to hear โPushโ and they want to hear โDiseaseโ or โIf Youโre Gone,โ so we want to play those songs. โฆ Itโs really a little dance you play around the setlist every night just trying to figure out what youโre going to put in and what youโre going to play tonight. And you just have to know that every night youโre going to have a small group of people that are going to be disappointed. Thatโs what we do, we disappoint people for a living. Thatโs our job.โ
Learning to be patient: โI think itโs one of those things that kind of got Matchbox Twenty back together, that feeling of everything is not the end of the world. And sometimes itโs OK to just go and have a good time and play some music and not take everything so damn serious all the time.โ
Looking toward the future: โKyle (Cook) is putting out his Rivers and Rust record next year. Iโm finishing up the songs for a solo record I want to put out sometime early next year, and Paul (Doucette) has been film scoring and has a few different projects lined up for next year. Weโre going to get through that cycle of doing our own thing that weโve already got in the pipeline so that we can really focus attention (on a new Matchbox Twenty album). At this point, itโs not like we are pressed to have to put something out right away to follow something up. If weโre going to do it we want to make sure itโs the best record we can make and the only way thatโs going to happen is if we are 100 percent in.โ
