Matthew Good

Photographer: Geoff Stairrs

Location: Montebello Park, St. Catharines

Date: June 2014

Size: 11x14

Framed: Yes

“The Matthew Good Band and I came of age at about the same time. Songs like Everything is Automatic and Apparitions are imprinted on the DNA of me and everyone I grew up with in the rural Maritimes, where Internet in its infancy and lack of a record stores left much of our musical well-being in the hands of MuchMusic VJs. When I had the opportunity to both see and photograph Good for the first time at SCENE in St. Catharines last summer, it didn’t take long for the thread that runs from teenage me to my present-day self to become evident. Good is an imposing presence onstage, as I always expected him to be, and those familiar songs sounded just as great as - if not better than - I remembered. Under ideal circumstances I approach live music photography the same way I would documentary or portraiture. The results are always best when your subject is truly engaged in what they are doing. While Good has struggled with the spotlight in the past, that night he seemed at home on the stage; his place in the Canadian cultural lexicon secure in the genes of a generation.”