Singer/songwriter/pianist Matthew Brookshire opened the new singer-songwriter series at Pangea with Matthew Brookshire Sings The Wedding Album, a show filled with memorable originals, smartly chosen covers, and loads of charm and surprising emotional depth. It recounted the adventures of a gay man facilitating the weddings of heterosexual couples.
Matthew Brookshire (Photo: Erika Capin)
Brookshire had many funny and touching stories from his career as a wedding singer and from the weddings he accompanied, leading into and out of songs which the brides and grooms requested, or which he chose for them. His stories of playing a supporting role in someone else’s story were great; he could easily have filled the hour with his comedic skills but, happily, he kept the songs as the centerpiece of the performance. He was especially effective when he became an extension of a happy couple within the song, embodying their jitters,, drama, joy, and romance.
He set this up in his opener “First Day of My Life” (Bright Eyes). He’s a good singer and musician, with lively phrasing and inviting delivery. It was easy to imagine his success in his chosen field. After a hilarious and captivating introduction, he presented his first original, “Any Hole in the Wall,” showcasing his very individual and uniquely musical voice that had me looking forward to his other self-penned songs. Then came the Magnetic Fields classic “The Book of Love” (Stephin Merritt), a favorite of mine delivered in all its infectiously pop song glory.
A sly transformation of the show began to take place, as it became apparent that a deeper, more pervasive theme of the evening was his own romance and his own wedding, which gave the evening its surprising and quietly effective emotional center. That theme was outlined in a funny bit about the requirements for an illegal gay wedding in the early 2000s. There was a list of five: 1) meet a guy; 2) follow the lesbians; 3) find a park and a poet; 4) pick a song; and 5) cake. Rather than choose a song, Brookshire wrote one. He and his husband wed before gay marriage was legalized in New York, and they were forced to travel to Connecticut. So even though they remained die-hard Brooklynites, the wedding song he wrote was titled “New Haven.”
With a switch to guitar from piano, he followed his wedding memories with two delightful pop warhorses, done with a light yet effervescent touch—“Teenage Dream” (Katy Perry) tinged with a bit of “White Wedding” (Billy Idol), and then the Bob Dylan classic “To Make You Feel My Love.” As I got lost in the pop magic I couldn’t help envisioning the wedding for which he played that first medley.
There was eventually a Brooklyn ceremony, in Fort Green Park, complete with a recitation of Walt Whitman’s “The Manly Love of Comrades,” thereby fulfilling the third gay wedding requirement. Another sparkling original song came from the event as well, “Honey Bee” (Brookshire, Curtis Moore). I loved the nursery rhyme fun of the lyrics, with refrains like “My little honey bee bring me the sun/ sting me for fun/ my own little honey bee look what you’ve done to me.”
The romance continued with the touching inclusion of “So This is Love (The Cinderella Waltz)” (Mack David, Al Hoffman, Jerry Livingston, from Disney’s Cinderella), perfectly capped with a dollop of delight by including a scoop of “Ice Cream” (Sarah McLachlan) leading into the final original of the night, and a real keeper, “Love’s a Lesson.” From that moment on the show practically flew by, buoyed by a touching “Harvest Moon” (Neil Young) framed in the thought of renewed wedding vows, and then back to guitar for “Walking in Sunshine” (Katrina & The Waves) which had the audience tapping its feet and singing along.
As I applauded along after the well-chosen but still surprising encore of Madonna’s “Like a Prayer,” I realized the one thing in the world I wanted to do at that moment was to see Matthew Brookshire Sings The Wedding Album again. Trust me, this is not a common occurrence.
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Presented at Pangea, 178 Second Avenue, NYC, May 1, 2025.
