This week’s spotlight for Druid City Music Hall’s Kaleidoscope series was on 26-year-old country artist Chase Matthew, who took the stage on Thursday
With over 973,000 followers on TikTok, 295,000 followers on Instagram and over 4 million monthly listeners on Spotify, Matthew is no stranger to the bright lights.
Fellow country artist and rural Alabama native Jay Webb hit the stage as the opener, performing such songs as “Down Here” and “Bury Me With Bourbon,” which have amassed over 14 million and over 12 million streams on Spotify, respectively.
Signed to Warner Music Nashville in 2022, Matthew has garnered over 1 billion global career streams and even toured with country superstar Luke Bryan earlier this year on Bryan’s “Mind Of A Country Boy” tour.
Matthew has also performed individually on tours of his own for multiple years and has received glowing praise from those who were able to see him perform live.
“I actually saw him at Country Thunder in Wisconsin around two years ago, and I just love that his voice sounds authentic and just like in his recordings,” said Amelia Reese, an MBA student.
Despite being a native of Sevierville, Tennessee, Matthew received a warm welcome upon arriving on enemy turf this week in Alabama, with fans closest to the stage reaching their phones out in hopes of getting a personalized video, to which Matthew obliged during his opening number.
Matthew tapped into his humble beginning by opening with one of his biggest tracks titled “Small Town Shit,” which has amassed over 5 million views on YouTube in just eight months.
Starting with nothing more than a microphone in hand, Matthew ran around the stage with all the moxie of not just a musician, but a seasoned entertainer.
In addition, he is experienced when it comes to working the crowd, and before each song, he asked a brief question or made a statement to draw the audience in.
For instance, before getting into his fan-favorite 2021 hit titled “Pull Up,” whose chorus includes the lyrics “We just wanna party,” he asked the question, “Who came to party tonight?”
This elicited a roar of approval from the crowd, indicating that they did in fact come to party.
“‘Pull Up’ is my favorite song from him. What I like about it is … it’s just really good country music for a party,” said Jordan Medders, a concertgoer from Anniston, Alabama.
Following “Pull Up,” Matthew hyped the venue up to its apex of the night when covering Florida Georgia Line’s 2012 smash hit “Cruise.”
This wasn’t the only cover of the night, as the young country phenom found that it was only right to cover “Dixieland Delight,” given the location of the gig. Unsurprisingly, the crowd had no issue singing along to this T-Town staple, especially the particularly pertinent between-lyrics line of “and Tennessee too.”
The show had something to offer for everyone, as the band eventually dialed back the energetic atmosphere in favor of a more sentimental and heartfelt approach with the performance of “Come Get Your Memory,” accompanied by fingerpicking of a Gibson Hummingbird acoustic guitar.
“Everything he sings is relatable in multiple ways. Rather than some country artists who just sing about what’s trending, he sings about personal stuff,” said Judson Hallman, a freshman majoring in nursing.
