The Suitcase Junket Plays New Album at The Sinclair

By Rodin Batcheller

Matt Lorenz, better known as the Suitcase Junket, performed the entirety of his new album Mean Dog, Trampoline, released on April 5, to the crowded Sinclair in Cambridge.

He just started playing

There were no frills. There was no grand entrance. The opening act had done their thing and the stage was cleared, leaving only the eclectic ensemble of drums and homemade percussion instruments. Then, the Suitcase Junket strode onto the stage before the stage lights even went up greeting the audience with a simple, "Hi," before jumping right into his first song.

After playing a few songs, the Suitcase Junket sampled a few cover songs

As soon as he finished up "Everything I Like," a song from his new album, the Suitcase Junket played the first verse and chorus of Joan Jett's "I Love Rock 'N Roll" before cutting himself off by saying, "That's enough of that." After a performance of "Stay Too Long," he started playing "You May Be Right" by Billy Joel, stopping after a verse and a chorus. Later on during the performance, he would perform Whitney Houston's "I Wanna Dance With Somebody" in its entirety.

Nothing like I'd ever seen

I had no idea that the Suitcase Junket was a one-man band. So when he sat down on a beat-up suitcase with an electric acoustic guitar that looked like it had been through a war, I was a little confused. Surrounding him was a single tom drum, a warped symbol, two homemade metal drums with pedals and an odd-looking apparatus with small animal bones hanging from it. During most of the performance, he wailed on his guitar with a homemade jingle bell shaker in his strumming hand.

After playing his new album all the way through, he raised his arms in triumph, yelling at the crowd, "We did it!" After faking to leave, he came back to play one more song stating, "I guess I'm just desperate to play more." After seeing him perform, I'm just desperate to hear more.