Matt Storm - FIRST CONCERT EVER

In this First Concert Ever segment, the alternative soul artist, Matt Storm, talks about the story of his first experience with live music. You can check out the story below:

The first real concert I got to go to was Ben Harper and Damian Marley at The Greek Theatre in LA. I was around 16 at the time, and my older brother was living down there. My dad took my younger brother and me on a big road trip all the way down from B.C., Canada. At the time, Welcome to Jamrock had just come out, and we were obsessed with Damian. My dad got us the CD, and we vibed to it the whole way down.

I had heard of The Greek Theatre and was super excited. I had also been a fan of Ben Harper for years. I remember the sun was still out when Damian did the opening set. He sounded incredible, and his dreadlocks were so long they were scraping the ground. There was one guy who just waved the Rasta flag the whole show—that was his only job. At one point, Damian started talking about how stupid it was to see rich people in Mercedes driving through McDonald’s eating garbage. It was such a simple observation that said so much about Americans and expanded my mind. Everyone was passing around joints, and I had to pretend I didn’t want to hit that shit. I saw my dad duck over for a second and try to hit one secretly. I was like, “I knew that mothafucka smoked weed.” I took a walk around the theatre at one point and managed to get someone to pass me a hit.

Ben Harper’s set was also amazing. He played for hours. My favorite part was when he played Burn One Down. The whole theatre went completely dark, and a spotlight came down on the back rows. It was the djembe player, and he had a giant spliff in his mouth. Smoke was billowing out everywhere as he began the iconic djembe intro for the song. The place went nuts. That show was fucking amazing.

Keep up with Matt Storm on Instagram and his website.