The Fan That's Taken
A website called NYROCK states the following on their site:
“Rob Thomas’s charismatic stage presence and catchy tunes have made Matchbox 20 the music biz’s latest greatest stars.”
I agree 100%!
I love the band Matchbox 20.
I love the lead singer, Rob Thomas, even more. I always have.
From the first time that I heard the song 3 A.M., I was hooked. One day I read that the song was dedicated to his mother, whom he had nursed through cancer, but who ultimately lost her battle. I almost cried! That was it! Rob had my heart!
***Well, Joe has my actual heart. Rob only has the heart I drew in 1st grade that was so rudely rejected. *** I decided to recycle it, since it is the hip thing to do these days.
OK, I am trailing off again.
The sound of Rob’s music and his voice seemed so different from everything else on the radio. Usually, if I am not familiar with a song, I will switch the station because I like to sing along to songs whose words I know by heart. However, on the day I heard M-20, I gave the new sound a chance. I loved what I heard. Following the song, the DJ on 106.7 said “And they are newcomers Matchbox 20. We’re going to hear great things from these guys.” Wow! Now that is prophetic!
It was 1996 when I first heard of Matchbox 20. Another wonderful thing was happening at the same time: I was dating Joe. Joe adores music and had gone to many concerts and bought CDs by the bagful. I was a pseudo fan, meaning I never went to concerts and CDs were few and far between. I liked music but was content with listening to whatever was on the radio.
Matchbox 20 changed me! After the 3 A.M. song, I started to listen out for other stuff by the band and began to recognize Thomas’s voice as soon as I heard it. I became giddy when they were on. Not since my crazed Menudo days as a teen, not since I discovered Elvis as a kid, had I been this excited about a band. With Menudo, I made sure to beg my parents to buy me all of their albums because I did not make any money of my own to buy them myself. I saw the Menudo movie a few million times and I plastered the walls in my room with images of the boys in all their juicy teen glory. I went to a few concerts, and even formed a fan club – filling out all the necessary paperwork with the Menudo offices in San Juan, Puerto Rico. I made myself the president and got some friends to don sweatshirts we had made on 82nd street in Jackson Heights with the ironed-on images of the boys. It was all the rage at the time. My first (and for years) my last such escapades for a band were for Menudo, a fabricated boy band that made millions off of silly little girls like me!
Many people like to mock Matchbox 20. They call the band amateurish, silly, uncool, and soft among several other scornful adjectives. However, the people who say these things obviously do not see the full picture. M-20 is led by the super talented Rob Thomas. He is a genius! Thomas writes all of the band’s songs, as well as songs of his own that he records under his own name. I love that his songs are not always about the same bullshit lovey-dovey nonsense. His songs are definitely not the cookie cutter songs we have all heard hundreds of times. He always takes on these weird angles of relationships or random life situations (like when you work for a jerk as in the song “Real World”) and builds a completely great song around it.
With the song 3 A.M., you do not even comprehend what it’s about because the lyrics seem so random. However, when you know what he was dealing with at the time he wrote it, it’s like you listen again with new ears and are like: “Wow! OK, I get it now!” The song was about his mother. Sadly, she never got to hear it because she died just before her son made it big. Rob’s mother worried about everything – the typical, overprotective worrywart mother. Even when her health was deteriorating, she’d never forget to tell Rob to wear a rain coat and would wait up for him until the early morning hours when he got back from his little gigs with his band. Ah, it makes sense now!
I love pretty much all that he has written and performed! Some of my favorites are “Back to Good” – about two people bored at a party who contemplate hooking up and parting ways because, after all, no one will care. They can do the deed and then go back to being good people, as if nothing happened.
Another great one is “Bright Lights”. It is about a guy whose girlfriend moves to New York City to pursue, what I can gather is some sort of performing career. In his pained words, he makes sure she knows that he will miss her, but he’s not going to hold her back. He tells her that if things don’t go as she planned, he will be waiting for her back where she started.
Still another great song titled “If You’re Gone”. I love, LOVE this one! It is about a guy who has realized he let someone go who will not be so easy to forget. He took her for granted and now he is like: “Oh, crap! I messed up!” In the song, he says: “I bet you’re hard to get over”…and you think: Realization is a bitch! As soon as you hear the intro to it – sung by Rob without instrumental background – “I think I've already lost you…I think you're already gone…I think I'm finally scared now...” you are a goner! Or, at least, I am!
**Sigh**
On his own CDs apart from the band, he has excellent songs as well. My personal favorite, purely for the reason behind the song, is “Ever the Same”. He wrote it for his wife, Marisol (a Latina sister, yet I still hate her!) after she was diagnosed with – what I suspect is Lupus (like me). In it, he assures her he is there for her, as she goes through this illness. The words are so painfully real, I die a little each time I hear them. I cry a little each time, too. Joe always laughs at me. Either laughs, or looks at me and says: “Are you kidding me?” Haha!
A sample of “Ever the Same” is: “You were holding me like a someone broken, and I couldn't tell you, but I'm telling you now. Just let me hold you while you're falling apart. Just let me hold you so we both fall down” – He is telling her: We are in this together. I am not going anywhere. Is that not perfect?!
Following September 11, he wrote a holiday song and the City was the object of his affection. It is called Merry New York Christmas. I cannot hear that song without crying. It starts with: "Call on your angels - Come down to the city - Crowd around the big tree - All you strangers who know me - Bring your compassion -Your understanding - Lord, how we need it - On this New York City Christmas" followed by..... "And the sidewalk angels echo Alleluia! We understand them! Now more than ever! Merry New York Christmas" Only if you ever spent time in NYC at Christmas can you get the significance and magnitude of it!
Right now, I am all about his latest called “Little Wonders”. I suspect he wrote it around the time he wrote the song to Marisol. It has a similar theme about just letting things be when we can’t control them. The lyrics are beautiful, different, and unique.
I could literally go on and on, but I will spare you!
So anyway, as I mentioned earlier, prior to M-20 and Rob, the only time I displayed signs of sheer pandemonium at the sight or sound of a band was Menudo – way back in the 80s. As for Elvis, well, I love the guy but he sort of died before I was old enough to attend a concert, let alone but a record (yeah, they were records back then!).
However, Matchbox 20 came around when I was already an adult – able to act like a crazed teen and pay for the privilege myself! They are the only band that I like enough to not let an album release go by without buying it. When they are in concert, I want to see them every time! And when I attend, I will scream, jump, sing and cry like any good maniac in attendance, too!
Joe took me for my birthday in 1996 to see my very first Matchbox 20 concert at Jones Beach. It was early still in our relationship when everything is still so shiny and new and you do anything and everything for each other. Good times! Good times! At that concert, I was absolutely beside myself with joy! I enjoyed every second and screamed along to every song and suddenly realized what I had become – an honest to goodness fan of this band.
This past Valentine’s Day, Joe took me to see them again. This time we saw them at Madison Square Garden. Again, they did not disappoint. It was Rob’s birthday and the entire Garden sang Happy Birthday to him. I had the best time ever!
After I outgrew my Menudo phase, I blamed my insanity on youth. I believed that it was because I was just a kid that I behaved so irrationally, crying at the sight of them, spending every penny on them, living, and breathing them, wearing them on clothes and buttons, covering my walls in them. Complete insanity is what I call that now!
Yet, as I remain steadfast in my current fanatical state for this band and its singer, I remind myself that it is not so much about my youth as it is about me staying young at heart! I am a fan. I am damn proud of it!
“Rob Thomas’s charismatic stage presence and catchy tunes have made Matchbox 20 the music biz’s latest greatest stars.”
I agree 100%!
I love the band Matchbox 20.
I love the lead singer, Rob Thomas, even more. I always have.
From the first time that I heard the song 3 A.M., I was hooked. One day I read that the song was dedicated to his mother, whom he had nursed through cancer, but who ultimately lost her battle. I almost cried! That was it! Rob had my heart!
***Well, Joe has my actual heart. Rob only has the heart I drew in 1st grade that was so rudely rejected. *** I decided to recycle it, since it is the hip thing to do these days.
OK, I am trailing off again.
The sound of Rob’s music and his voice seemed so different from everything else on the radio. Usually, if I am not familiar with a song, I will switch the station because I like to sing along to songs whose words I know by heart. However, on the day I heard M-20, I gave the new sound a chance. I loved what I heard. Following the song, the DJ on 106.7 said “And they are newcomers Matchbox 20. We’re going to hear great things from these guys.” Wow! Now that is prophetic!
It was 1996 when I first heard of Matchbox 20. Another wonderful thing was happening at the same time: I was dating Joe. Joe adores music and had gone to many concerts and bought CDs by the bagful. I was a pseudo fan, meaning I never went to concerts and CDs were few and far between. I liked music but was content with listening to whatever was on the radio.
Matchbox 20 changed me! After the 3 A.M. song, I started to listen out for other stuff by the band and began to recognize Thomas’s voice as soon as I heard it. I became giddy when they were on. Not since my crazed Menudo days as a teen, not since I discovered Elvis as a kid, had I been this excited about a band. With Menudo, I made sure to beg my parents to buy me all of their albums because I did not make any money of my own to buy them myself. I saw the Menudo movie a few million times and I plastered the walls in my room with images of the boys in all their juicy teen glory. I went to a few concerts, and even formed a fan club – filling out all the necessary paperwork with the Menudo offices in San Juan, Puerto Rico. I made myself the president and got some friends to don sweatshirts we had made on 82nd street in Jackson Heights with the ironed-on images of the boys. It was all the rage at the time. My first (and for years) my last such escapades for a band were for Menudo, a fabricated boy band that made millions off of silly little girls like me!
Many people like to mock Matchbox 20. They call the band amateurish, silly, uncool, and soft among several other scornful adjectives. However, the people who say these things obviously do not see the full picture. M-20 is led by the super talented Rob Thomas. He is a genius! Thomas writes all of the band’s songs, as well as songs of his own that he records under his own name. I love that his songs are not always about the same bullshit lovey-dovey nonsense. His songs are definitely not the cookie cutter songs we have all heard hundreds of times. He always takes on these weird angles of relationships or random life situations (like when you work for a jerk as in the song “Real World”) and builds a completely great song around it.
With the song 3 A.M., you do not even comprehend what it’s about because the lyrics seem so random. However, when you know what he was dealing with at the time he wrote it, it’s like you listen again with new ears and are like: “Wow! OK, I get it now!” The song was about his mother. Sadly, she never got to hear it because she died just before her son made it big. Rob’s mother worried about everything – the typical, overprotective worrywart mother. Even when her health was deteriorating, she’d never forget to tell Rob to wear a rain coat and would wait up for him until the early morning hours when he got back from his little gigs with his band. Ah, it makes sense now!
I love pretty much all that he has written and performed! Some of my favorites are “Back to Good” – about two people bored at a party who contemplate hooking up and parting ways because, after all, no one will care. They can do the deed and then go back to being good people, as if nothing happened.
Another great one is “Bright Lights”. It is about a guy whose girlfriend moves to New York City to pursue, what I can gather is some sort of performing career. In his pained words, he makes sure she knows that he will miss her, but he’s not going to hold her back. He tells her that if things don’t go as she planned, he will be waiting for her back where she started.
Still another great song titled “If You’re Gone”. I love, LOVE this one! It is about a guy who has realized he let someone go who will not be so easy to forget. He took her for granted and now he is like: “Oh, crap! I messed up!” In the song, he says: “I bet you’re hard to get over”…and you think: Realization is a bitch! As soon as you hear the intro to it – sung by Rob without instrumental background – “I think I've already lost you…I think you're already gone…I think I'm finally scared now...” you are a goner! Or, at least, I am!
**Sigh**
On his own CDs apart from the band, he has excellent songs as well. My personal favorite, purely for the reason behind the song, is “Ever the Same”. He wrote it for his wife, Marisol (a Latina sister, yet I still hate her!) after she was diagnosed with – what I suspect is Lupus (like me). In it, he assures her he is there for her, as she goes through this illness. The words are so painfully real, I die a little each time I hear them. I cry a little each time, too. Joe always laughs at me. Either laughs, or looks at me and says: “Are you kidding me?” Haha!
A sample of “Ever the Same” is: “You were holding me like a someone broken, and I couldn't tell you, but I'm telling you now. Just let me hold you while you're falling apart. Just let me hold you so we both fall down” – He is telling her: We are in this together. I am not going anywhere. Is that not perfect?!
Following September 11, he wrote a holiday song and the City was the object of his affection. It is called Merry New York Christmas. I cannot hear that song without crying. It starts with: "Call on your angels - Come down to the city - Crowd around the big tree - All you strangers who know me - Bring your compassion -Your understanding - Lord, how we need it - On this New York City Christmas" followed by..... "And the sidewalk angels echo Alleluia! We understand them! Now more than ever! Merry New York Christmas" Only if you ever spent time in NYC at Christmas can you get the significance and magnitude of it!
Right now, I am all about his latest called “Little Wonders”. I suspect he wrote it around the time he wrote the song to Marisol. It has a similar theme about just letting things be when we can’t control them. The lyrics are beautiful, different, and unique.
I could literally go on and on, but I will spare you!
So anyway, as I mentioned earlier, prior to M-20 and Rob, the only time I displayed signs of sheer pandemonium at the sight or sound of a band was Menudo – way back in the 80s. As for Elvis, well, I love the guy but he sort of died before I was old enough to attend a concert, let alone but a record (yeah, they were records back then!).
However, Matchbox 20 came around when I was already an adult – able to act like a crazed teen and pay for the privilege myself! They are the only band that I like enough to not let an album release go by without buying it. When they are in concert, I want to see them every time! And when I attend, I will scream, jump, sing and cry like any good maniac in attendance, too!
Joe took me for my birthday in 1996 to see my very first Matchbox 20 concert at Jones Beach. It was early still in our relationship when everything is still so shiny and new and you do anything and everything for each other. Good times! Good times! At that concert, I was absolutely beside myself with joy! I enjoyed every second and screamed along to every song and suddenly realized what I had become – an honest to goodness fan of this band.
This past Valentine’s Day, Joe took me to see them again. This time we saw them at Madison Square Garden. Again, they did not disappoint. It was Rob’s birthday and the entire Garden sang Happy Birthday to him. I had the best time ever!
After I outgrew my Menudo phase, I blamed my insanity on youth. I believed that it was because I was just a kid that I behaved so irrationally, crying at the sight of them, spending every penny on them, living, and breathing them, wearing them on clothes and buttons, covering my walls in them. Complete insanity is what I call that now!
Yet, as I remain steadfast in my current fanatical state for this band and its singer, I remind myself that it is not so much about my youth as it is about me staying young at heart! I am a fan. I am damn proud of it!
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