Listening to Matt Wertz’s single ‘Carolina’ will take on a whole new meaning for those in attendance at Tuesday night’s concert. He let the crowd – packed in the Schine Underground – in on the song’s story, but made sure to let them know not to spread it.

It’s kind of embarrassing.

But, it is the word-of-mouth from loyal fans that have led the Tennessee native to where he is today. Wertz – whose sound is similar to a rawer Jack Johnson and a rough version of James Taylor – performed for an hour and a half to a group of both devoted and new listeners alike.

The show – the first University Union/Bandersnatch concert of the semester – featured Wertz along with fellow southern musician Andy Davis, who opened with his own mix of guitar grit and Ben Folds-like piano playing that made the Underground shake.

‘I actually came for Andy Davis,’ Sam Underwood, an undeclared freshman arts and sciences major, said. ‘I love his combination of acoustics with piano. It’s good study music.’

After a 45-minute opening set by Davis, Wertz took the stage, telling the audience right away he wanted this show to be an interactive experience. And he made it just that. Before every song in his set Wertz gave the crowd instructions to either snap, clap or sing along.

Throughout the show, Wertz interjected stories about the songs he performed – such as the MySpace-influenced reality behind ‘Carolina’ – and his thoughts on life, songwriting and cloning humans, as he was both intrigued and then inspired to write a short song after reading an article in an in-flight magazine on the way to Syracuse.

Each of his songs told the story of different stages in his life, from a melancholy tune about a long-distance relationship (‘Saturday, 600 miles lie between the two of us and telephones can’t replace me with you face to face…’), a ballad to his now deceased grandfather, or Papa Doc, (‘We keep waiting for footsteps at the back door and the punch line of the joke….’) and a newly re-titled single about the fears of ‘growing old, but not quite growing up.’

Wertz paused before singing his seventh song – entitled ‘Only One’ – to announce that last week he signed his first official record deal with Universal Republic records, home to the likes of Johnson, Amy Winehouse and Mika.

He followed that news with a more serious message for the audience about poverty and health care in Africa; he has gone twice in the last three years.

‘I had so many expectations about what I was going to see when I got there,’ Wertz told the audience. ‘I had heard all of Bono’s thoughts on Africa, but I had no idea. I knew though that when I got back I would go back to living the way I had before the trip.’

To combat that, Wertz, along with several friends, started the Mocha Club, with the goal of donating the money one would spend on two mocha lattes per day – roughly $7 for Wertz – and donating it instead to anti-hunger organizations in Africa.

For everyone that signed up to join the Mocha Club after the concert, Wertz gave out a complimentary CD.

‘His music is amazing,’ Caitlin Morrison, a sophomore international relations major and long-time Wertz fan, said. ‘He has songs for every moment of my life: songs for going to sleep, waking up, when I’m sad. And most performances don’t sound like the CDs, but his did tonight.’

akalliso@syr.edu

Published on February 12, 2008 at 12:00 pm