Saturday night’s show was a great example of what Lexington could be in the near future: fun new venue, critically acclaimed headliner, two solid local acts and dozens of music fans who arrived early and stayed late.

The show was all about new music and collaborations. When Idiot Glee started the night off, he gave us three new tracks off his 2013 EP Life Without Jazz. On the title track, he was joined by the Matt Duncan Band’s trumpeter to solo freestyle over the new track. That one showed a real change in James’ songwriting that I’m very excited about. I love his first record, but this sounds really exciting.

Matt Duncan gave us a few new songs as well. The one that really struck me is the one that’ll likely wind up the new single off his upcoming record Soft Times, “Solitary Heart.” Even live I could tell it’s got a great arrangement. The old songs were fun too. Matt introduced one with a little comment about how long they’ve been playing it, “This is called ‘Mean Streak’… it’s as old as sin.” But those songs have become local hits. I doubt I’ll ever get tired of hearing “Summer Song” live.

The whole event was an album release party for Nick Diamonds’ I Am An Attic, so he was the main event in more than one way. This was my first time seeing him perform solo, and after he was finished I’m not sure why he doesn’t do it more often. He opened up with some covers (“Blue Moon,” “Moon River,” “That Summer Feeling” by Jonathan Richman) before bringing Idiot Glee back on stage to do keyboard support for the rest of his show. They did a handful of songs off his solo LP, “Gone Bananas” and “Used to be Funny,” and a cover of Harry Nilsson’s “Are You Sleeping?” which the duo will apparently record in the studio.

But even though they did a great job with the new material, the gem for me was getting to hear Nick play a Unicorns song live. James (who I know to also be a big Unicorns fan) played keyboard/sample percussion with Nick on “Ready to Die.” That was a big deal for me.