Review: Matt Hartke, JD & the Straight Shot and Matt Costa at The Troubadour, July 25

By THEO TRAN, Backstage SoCal contributor writer

The Coffee House Tour at The Troubadour, Los Angeles was an unforgettable night with stellar music from three of SiriusXM’s powerhouse artists. Covering classic tracks from the 1960s to unreleased modern gems, this tour gives a taste of the full range of the music spectrum and more.

Matt Hartke, a Coffee House veteran, who has been under the radar writing for artists such as Adam Lambert, Avicii, Kygo and Tiesto; kicked the show off with some of his newest singles barely released on SiriusXM’s radio. His new singles “American Dreams” and “Evergreen” received unanimous woos from the audience, and a heavy round of applause. Matt is an artist/songwriter who was able to captivate the entire room with just his voice and a guitar. Hartke carried an extremely pure and innocent nature throughout his performance, which resonated with the crowd in an extremely humanistic way. He closed out by bringing special guest Maggie Peake to the stage to perform one of his most popular singles, “Gold”, topping over 17 million plays on Spotify.

Matt Hartke performs with special guest Maggie Peake at the SiriusXM Coffee House show at the Troubadour in LA on July 25.

JD & The Straight Shot, one of the Coffee House Folk Rock hard hitters, comprised of vocalist/guitarist Jim Dolan, guitarist/vocalist/mandolinist Marc Copely, upright bassist/banjoist Byron House, violinist/vocalist Erin Slaver, drummer/percussionist Shawn Pelton and guitarist/vocalist Carolyn Dawn Johnson kicked their performance off with their title track off the album, “The Great Divide,” receiving an uproar of recognition and snaps from the crowd. The band explained the story behind each of their songs, and gave the audience a different look into their expression. Each member of this band had created different songs for their set, finding different ways to engage the room, and synergize with one another. Additionally, JD & the Straight Shot made sure to pay ode to their musical background by covering classics like, “Happy Together” by the Turtles and “Jessica” by The Allman Brothers, which had the whole room singing along and grinning. These artists are true entertainers, covering all spectrums of what it means to be a performer.

JD & The Straight Shot perform at The Troubadour for the SiriusXM Coffee House tour on July 25.

**Guitarist Marc Copely of JD & The Straight Shot.**
**Read the Backstage SoCal interview with Marc** **here**.

Matt Costa, an OC native and a Coffee House icon, connected to his music on a different wavelength. From start to finish, there were almost no breaks from his music. Costa varied between several different instruments, including the trumpet, harmonica, guitar and vocals, showing the full capacity of his musical aptitude. Costa had the room packed from start to finish, reaching just about every demographic of age within his audience. His music had a storytelling and casual format making it extremely easy to connect to. Costa treated the room by showing them songs still unreleased in media, and made sure to give a show worth remembering.