Prime Real Esate

Life is good when you're a ticket holder to a sold-out show.

And by ticket, I mean an actual small blue piece of card stock, not a computer-generated piece of paper.

In fact, when I walked through the door of Strange Matter (where a sign screamed "Sold Out" just in case you hadn't seen the endless Facebook event page notifications telling you the same), the ticket taker asked if I wanted to keep my ticket.

You know, for my scrapbook. Or posterity. Or something.

So I did.

As old-school tickets become more of a rarity, why not?

After all, we live in an age where you can buy a ticket online and a day later receive an e-mail asking if you'd like to purchase a commemorative ticket for eight bucks.

It won't get you in the door (only your computer printout can do that) but, for a premium, you'll have a souvenir of the show.

But enough about 21st century ticketing.

After a satisfying plate of black bean nachos and a thrash soundtrack at 821, I arrived in time to score a place on one of the booth benches, ensuring I'd have a bird's eye view of the stage once the show began.

Good thing, too, because a lot of tall guys in plaid shirts showed up and I would have been looking at their backs otherwise.

The Diamond Center played first and judging from the crowd's reaction, there were a lot of people seeing them for the first time.

A friend and I discussed the novelty of seeing them so early.

"I've never seen the Diamond Center before 1 a.m.," he noted, but for a change they were the opener.

Their sound was also the hardest of the three, but it's such well executed psychedelia that it totally worked to have them lead off.

Australia's Twerps were next and they were energetic, jangly and completely infectious.

"We're from Australia," lead singer Marty said, resulting in some cheering. "Do you really know where that is?"

Well, some of us do, but given the abundance of people with a large X on their hands to indicate non-drinking eligibility, perhaps a geography lesson is in order.

Marty was losing his voice and by the last song, having a tough go of it but he soldiered on.

"That last song was about my girlfriend," he said gesturing at the other guitar player before singing another about her.

It seemed very sincere and very sweet.

Their poppy songs and surfy guitars reminded me of local musician Allison Apperson's former band Hot Lava.

It's hard not to bop to that kind of music.

During the break, people flooded in turning a comfortable room on a 47-degree night into a much sweatier place.

And suddenly the stage was full of Jersey boys and there wasn't a t-shirt in the bunch.

Clearly they do things differently in the garden state.

But what the band does very well is produce sunny songs with layers of guitar and vocals that sound like the best kind of wistful pop.

"This is our first time in Richmond," the gregarious bass player Alex told the crowd. "It's pretty cool."

Actually, what was pretty cool was that a rising band like Real Estate was playing a tiny venue like Strange Matter and I got to be there.

Lead singer Martin was not big on banter between songs, or even on smiling until near the end of the set, but he was obviously putting his all into playing music with his long-time friends and band mates.

The bassist took over lead vocals for "Wonder Years," yet another catchy pop gem that was instantly memorable ("I'm not trying to be cool, I only wanna be kind, I know that I've pissed you off, Baby, better rewind").

As if catchy tunes and longing lyrics weren't enough, the band was masterful at taking off with shimmering guitar jams that managed to be pure pop heaven.

And the crowd ate it all up. "Exactly Nothing" is going to end up on my next mix tape.

After a set that included a dance song ("Back up so you have room to move") and a couple of covers ("It's good to get the covers out of the way early in the set") in addition to so many summery songs, they finished their last song.

Only Marty took off his guitar before the others gave him the look and he strapped it back on.

"We'll skip the going all the way to the back and coming back up," Alex said with a grin.

So we got one last pop masterpiece and so much guitar noodling that it visibly surprised Marty when it continued on. And then it was all over.

The good part? Escaping out into the cool night air after standing on a bench sweating like crazy for hours.

The bad? Losing the pleasure of seeing live the sunniest music I've heard in a long time.

There goes the day, oh, what a shame
It's okay, that's all the same
It's alright, it's okay
Because the night is just another day

And with Real Estate, it was as sunny a night as my sky-blue ticket.