Matt and Kim light up 9:30 Club on Nov. 20, 2019. (Photo by Mickey McCarter)

In 2009, Brooklyn indie pop duo Matt and Kim released Grand, their sophomore album, and party bands were never the same again. The couple celebrated 10 years of the record by playing it in its entirety in a super sold-out show at 9:30 Club recently.

Matt and Kim fired out of the gate with “Daylight,” as you would want them to do, at the top of the show on Nov. 20, and then rearranged the order of the Grand album to keep the fire burning — the high-energy “I Wanna” appeared next in the setlist.

But a Matt and Kim show isn’t really about the order of the songs, and sometimes isn’t really about the individual songs at all per se. The show was instead about good-time high-jinks, energetic participation, and spontaneous laughter. Matt, ever the beaming “good guy,” and Kim, always the sassy “bad girl,” were at 9:30 Club to have a good time, and to have a good time with us. Nobody went home disappointed.

Stream Grand by Matt and Kim on Spotify:

In a highlight perhaps even a bit shocking for a Matt and Kim show, the couple produced multiple, inflatable sex dolls of themselves during the middle of the show and tossed them into the audience. The “Matt” dolls largely ended up on one side of the room and the “Kim” dolls on the other side, grooving along to the music while held aloft by audience members who gyrated the inflatables or tossed them aside to new handlers from song to song.

At keyboards, Matt was consistently smiles and arms as he tapped swiftly along to each song. At drums, Kim was a monster — in the best sort of way — flailing powerfully into her kit in a nonstop rampage. Both would take turns to break from their instruments and engage the audience from the apron of the stage, goading cheers or leading danceathons that threatened to never end.

In a second set and an encore, Matt and Kim drew from other albums — several songs each from Lightning (2012), New Glow (2015), and Sidewalks (2010). They selected only one song from their latest record, 2018’s Almost Everyday, to add “Happy If You’re Happy” to the concert’s encore.

Keep the party going with Matt and Kim on their website, and catch their homecoming show tonight at Brooklyn Steel if you can!

Here are some pictures of Matt and Kim performing at 9:30 Club on Nov. 20, 2019. All photos courtesy Mickey McCarter.