There are nights that do not merely fill the silence, but transform it. Nights where music doesn’t just echo from a stage, but reaches into the hollow places in you, fills them with something fragile and real. The Tallest Man on Earth’s performance on October 8th at the Academy of Music Theatre in Northampton, Massachusetts, was such a night.
Still carrying the weight of a recent loss, I walked into that grand old theatre looking for some kind of sign. Hoping that a voice from across the sea might help make sense of the one that’s gone silent in my own life. What I got instead was a kind of resurrection. An evening of heartbreak, healing, and a reminder that even sad songs can stitch a soul back together.
The tone was set gently by Anna Morsett, performing under the name The Still Tide. Her voice, a hush in the shape of light. brought the room to a reverent calm. With minimalist arrangements and lyrics that wandered into the corners of things we’re usually too afraid to say out loud, Morsett did more than kick off the show, she cracked it wide open. Her voice was soft but certain, threading delicate lines of longing and resilience through the stillness of the theatre. It was the kind of performance that didn’t ask for attention but earned it. The melancholy shimmer of her songs seemed to drift in the air like mist, setting the emotional temperature for the thought-provoking journey ahead.
Then came the man himself. Kristian Matsson, the Swedish troubadour better known as The Tallest Man on Earth. Not tall by any physical measure, but on that stage, in front of that hushed crowd, he was mountainous. Pirouetting onto the stage, violin in hand, Matsson didn’t so much walk into the Academy Theatre as explode into it. He stared out at the crowd with that now-familiar gleam in his eye, muttered a humble “Thank you for coming,” and began. The haunting “Skänklåt/Moonshiner” was more invocation than song, like he was summoning something ancient from the floorboards. And from that moment on, we were his.
What followed was a 90-minute outpouring of spirit, sweat, and soul that defied the simplicity of its instrumentation. Matsson is a one-man storm. Switching instruments between nearly every song that he rotated like a magician pulling from a hat. There were banjos, 6 and 12-string electric guitars, mandolins, and even a piano. The Tallest Man on Earth took the stage not to perform at us, but with us and with everything he had.
Over nearly two decades, Matsson has carved out a space all his own in modern folk. What began in 2006 with The Tallest Man on Earth EP grew into a celebrated catalog defined by intricate fingerpicking, poetic songwriting, and a voice that scratches the corners of your heart. Often compared to Bob Dylan, though he resists the label, Matsson’s approach to songwriting is more of an excavation than a statement. As he’s said himself, “Most of my songs are big life questions.” And there were plenty of questions on this night in Northampton.
Songs like “A Lion’s Heart” and “Wind and Walls” felt both intimate and towering and were delivered with urgent vulnerability. His voice, gravel-laced and elemental, cut through the theater like a north wind. And somehow, amid the flurry of notes and movement, he made space for stillness, those long pauses between phrases where it felt like the room might collapse in on itself with his voice cracking just enough to remind you this was all real. During “Rainbows and Ridges” and “Like the Wheel,” the audience, sitting eyes wide and silent, seemed suspended in the same memory. Mine was of a hospital room. Others, I imagine, were of their own ghosts
Then came “Major League,” preceded by a hilarious, wistful story about watching the classic comedic baseball film as a boy in rural Sweden and dreaming of one day visiting Cleveland. Recalling how cool he thought Charlie Sheen was as Rick ‘Wild Thing’ Vaughn and how the movie made it feel like Cleveland was the place to be in America. The tale meandered as Matsson’s do, disarmingly personal, self-deprecating, and somehow piercingly honest. There’s a beauty in how freely he tangles memory, place, and humor with pain. That’s what makes his concerts feel like conversations with an old, eccentric friend who’s also survived something.
Matsson is an extraordinary finger-picker. Nimble, precise, and somehow chaotic all at once, but it’s his stage presence that truly sets him apart. Alone on stage, he moved like a man trying to dance off a fever. Pirouetting, shimmying, duck-walking, and leaping with such unselfconscious joy that it felt like watching someone return to life in real time.
Between songs he spoke often, perhaps too often for one impatient heckler, but most of us were grateful for the tangents. There were moments of genuine laughter, too. Like the tale of his “magic elixir” vocal remedy from a previous Northampton visit, or the time he found out his song was being used, unauthorized, on a fishing show, only to end up joining them on a trip and writing a song for the host’s wedding. It was pure Matsson. Chaotic, charming, deeply felt. It all felt improvised and intimate, a peek behind the veil of the performer. And yet, it was the music that hit hardest.
“Burden of Tomorrow,” “The Dreamer,” and “Rivers” were achingly beautiful, each more soul-stirring than the last. When Matsson brought out his long-time friend and former guitar tech Anna Morsett again for a radiant duet on “The Gardener,” the stage exploded with energy. They bounced and twirled like children let out into the sun, their chemistry a kind of exuberant medicine.
The night’s emotional apex may have been “Revelation Blues” into “I Won’t Be Found,” two songs that somehow feel both like endings and beginnings. In those moments, I forgot where I was, forgot what I had lost. Or rather, I remembered it fully, but with less fear. Then, after a theatrical exit (we all knew he’d be back), Matsson returned for the encore, playing the feverish “King of Spain” with a final burst of manic joy before closing with the profoundly moving “Forever is a Very Long Time.” It was a fitting end. A reminder that time stretches, and yet, it all matters. He may be one man on a stage, but for ninety luminous minutes in a quiet New England theater, he held the room like a symphony.
As the lights came up and we shuffled back into the night, something had changed. Not just in me, but in everyone. I saw tear-streaked cheeks and dazed, smiling faces. Matsson had led us through something communal, intimate, and strange. The sad songs didn’t just make us sad. They lifted us. They made our pain feel shared, and thus survivable. The Tallest Man on Earth may never claim to be a healer, but on this unforgettable night, that’s exactly what he was.
The Tallest Man on Earth is more than a songwriter. He is a seeker, a storyteller, and a performer of the highest order. There are few artists alive today who can command a stage alone and make you feel like you’ve just been through a full orchestral symphony of emotions. He is, without exaggeration, one of this generation’s greatest singer-songwriters, a must-see performer, and a beacon for anyone wandering, wondering, or grieving. Sometimes, the most profound answers are just beautifully worded questions, played in the dark by a man who never stops moving. And sometimes, that’s enough.
The Tallest Man on Earth | October 8, 2025 | Academy of Music Theatre | Northampton, MA
Setlist: Skänklåt/Moonshiner, A Lion’s Heart, Wind and Walls, Rainbows and Ridges, Every Little Heart, Like the Wheel, Major League, Henry Street, Love Is All, Overboda, Burden of Tomorrow, The Dreamer, Rivers, Revelation Blues, I Won’t Be Found, The Gardener.
Encore: King of Spain, Forever is a Long Time.
The Still Tide | October 8, 2025 | Academy of Music Theatre | Northampton, MA
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