After fighting over an hour of traffic, I made my way into the Troubadour in West Hollywood, California to hear the last lingering notes of the Matches "hit" single "Who Let The Yankees in the Chip Shop?" Thankfully, they got my least favorite of their songs from their album released earlier this year on Epitaph Records, "A Band in Hope," before I even arrived. Time for the real show to begin.

The Matches are an odd Rock band, four young guys in excruciatingly tight jeans, with kind of funny hair, playing self-consciously artsy, slightly whiney pop with an infusion of punk and 80's hair metal (OK, one song has an 80's hair metal infusion, but it's enough to make note of it).

I worked my way upstairs, as the floor was completely packed and I, at 6 foot 3, will not push my way to the front of a crowd unless there's a serious pit going and I know I can lodge myself somewhere in the front without pissing anybody off. Instead, I took a spot on the small balcony and had a nice birds-eye-view of the goings-on downstairs.

The first song I heard the Matches perform was the aforementioned 80's metal infused tune, "This City." A triumphant and anthemic song with soaring high vocals and driving guitars. Throughout their 45 minute set (they were performing as direct support for Bayside) the Matches played a mix of energetic Rock and quirky melodic pop tunes. Their record, "A Band in Hope" is pretty much good, if a bit slow at times, from end-to-end, so as a new fan I was looking forward to hearing some of my favorite tunes and I wasn't disappointed.

Highlights of the evenings included their two songs about the morningtime, "Point Me Towards the Morning" and their radio hit, "Wake the Sun." Both upbeat and catchy... the heads were bobbing.

Any punk oriented show (though I would by no means call the Matches punk) tends to include a contingent of peopel who only know the "old stuff" - we call them the OGs. There were some Matches OG's out in force, as they played some of their older tures (with which I'm not familiar) and the crowd went slightly more nuts.

Of course, this was a Bayside show, so it's hard to guage the audience. I personally thouroughly enjoyed the Matches and hope to see them at some point, in a venue where I can actually hear the vocals (no offense to the historic Troubadour, but the sound could use some work). Bayside took the stage and I, as a totally unfamiliar listener couldn't hear a single word, so I just left rather than endure the complete lack of melody for a full hour set. No disrespect to Bayside for not giving them a shout-out here, but it's hard to review that which you can barely hear - from what I saw, the set seemed pretty decent.

Check out the Matches at www.Myspace.com/TheMatches