With special guest Abe Partridge

Matthew Sweet moved to Athens, GA at the urging of his pen pal, R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe in the early 1980s. Sweet honed his craft in the flourishing alternative rock scene playing with Oh-OK, Lloyd Cole, the Golden Palominos, Buzz of Delight, and recording two critically-acclaimed solo records before emerging in 1991 as the leading figure of the American power pop revival with the release of his watershed album, Girlfriend.

Like his British counterparts Teenage Fanclub, Sweet adhered to traditional songcraft, yet subverted the form by adding noisy post-punk guitar and flourishes of country-rock, resulting in an amalgam of the Beatles, Big Star, R.E.M., and Neil Young. Recorded with guitarists Richard Lloyd and Robert Quine, Girlfriend became a word-of-mouth critical and commercial hit over the course of 1992, with its title track reaching the Top Five on the Modern Rock charts. For the next five years, as alternative rock was the dominant commercial force in rock & roll, Sweet became a very popular concert attraction and solidified his reputation as the premiere alternative pop singer/songwriter.