Matt and Kim Storm Charm City

The natives of Charm City know the legendary Ottobar well: a consummately grungy dive bar tucked in the backstreets of Baltimore’s Charles Village neighborhood. If the Hüsker Dü and Talking Heads posters lining the walls don’t give you an idea of the place’s character, a hirsute bartender in his trademark Megadeth t-shirt will slide dirt-cheap rail drinks your way and regale you with stories of the time he snuck into a church late at night and threw empty beer bottles at the apse.

You might think it’d be an odd fit for Matt and Kim, the too-cute-to-be-cute husband and wife duo who sow raucous singalongs wherever they go like some kind of pop-punk Johnny Appleseed. But you’d be wrong. Any doubts about their credentials in this hipster’s den were immediately dispelled by the wild applause the titular pair inspired just from setting up their modest keyboard and drum set.

As the set began Matt gave the word to “wild out like Nick Cannon,” and the audience was only too happy to oblige. Matt stood on his stool, hunched over his keyboard in the swan yoga position while Kim leapt onto her drum kit and started round after round of handclaps. Their relentless giddiness sent the crowd’s fists pumping; Kim seemed ready to launch off of her drum stool with each bounce. The energy didn’t let up, either. By the time the first notes of fan-favorite “Daylight” could be heard towards the end of the set, the crowd was already rocketing back and forth with the explosive force of superheated hydrogen.

Levity was the order of the night, and it was served up in Matt and Kim’s deadpan onstage banter. Matt was only too eager to tell the story of the last time he came down to Baltimore: “I saw a dude who fit the textbook definition of a pimp. He was surrounded by women, and when I say women, I mean they looked like women, but were not women in the biological sense. And he was just standing there a block from the police station, holding a big stack of money in his hand. Baltimore is some serious shit.”

But their repartee ran deeper than frivolity: the genuine looks of affection the two exchanged while trading stories of their meteoric career bespoke the kind of romance between two lovers who’ve overcome the odds and melded their marriage, their jobs and their art. As they embraced, kissed, and charged into the crowd on “Silver Tiles,” the final number of the night, it was as though the lyrics captured the spirit of the city and the moment: “And all our hopes / and all our friends / through parking lots / it’s where we’ve been.”

Setlist:
I Wanna
Spare Change
It’s a Fact (Printed Stained)
Cutdown
Ready? OK.
Good Ol’ Fashion Nightmare
Cinders
5K
Lightspeed
Bigger (Cover)
Yea Yeah
Daylight
The Final Countdown (Cover)
Silver Tiles