It doesn’t feel like it’s been 20 years for Matthew Sweet: 20 years as a musician, 20 years of on-and-off touring, and, most importantly, 20 years since the release of his seminal pop album, “Girlfriend.”

Singer-songwriter Matthew Sweet is on tour again...with a twist. At each show, he'll be reviving the whole of his breakthrough, 20-year-old release "Girlfriend." Courtesy Matthew Sweet

“I thought that it would feel weirder than it does,” Sweet said. “I feel very close to the record … It does feel pretty new to me. It’s strange that it would but I guess it’s just maybe a tribute to the record itself having a sort of life in it.”

That new-ness should come in handy, as tonight marks the second show Sweet will be playing in a tour that commemorates the album’s release, as well as the release of his most recent work, “Modern Art.”

Sweet will be playing “Girlfriend” straight-through on each night of the tour, and he’s happy he gets to start off in Athens while the experience still has an exciting quality.

“I’m kind of happy we’re beginning [in Athens] and we’ll be fresh instead of having been out touring for a while,” he said. “There’s something fun about the first few times you play shows that are kind of exciting, you’re just a little bit less rehearsed, you know? A little more spontaneous.”

Sweet said the decision to make this tour “Girlfriend”-centric was itself a somewhat spontaneous event. When he realized that touring for “Modern Art” coincided with the 20-year anniversary of what many consider to be his breakthrough album, he decided to jump in and bring “Girlfriend” in its entirety to audiences live.

But it proved to be a bit more difficult than he expected.

“Well, you know I realized it was 20 years I guess when 2011 came around and I was sort of like, ‘Should we play the whole album?’” he said. “Then, later on, when we were really doing it, I was like ‘What was I thinking?’ Because it’s just sort of daunting to learn it all. But we’ve stuck with the idea … So it’ll be fun that we’re fresh for the tour and playing it for the first few times when we see you guys [in Athens].”

Sweet also plans on working some of his other more well-known songs into his sets in the coming weeks, and he stresses that, while he’ll be staying mainly true to “Girlfriend,” that it won’t sound exactly as fans remember it from the album.

“We’re not trying to make it like the record or anything, it’s an electric show, we don’t really do acoustic stuff,” he said. “I do a lot of background vocals with myself on the record — there’ll be some of that, but not as involved. Generally I think we stay pretty close to the actual thing, we don’t change anything into some other groove.”

Although this tour is a commemoration of Sweet’s past, it’s also a celebration of his newest release, an album he thinks will appeal to fans of his older work too.

“I think definitely fans of mine will find things they would like [on ‘Modern Art’],” he said. “I think it’s really good for repeated listening, this record … I think of the songs as being really personal, kind of like I’m singing in your ear or something.”

Some mixed emotions would normally be expected at a time like this for Sweet — recognizing the passage of time, remembering an album that put his name on the map, re-connecting with fans through it — but he feels mostly positive about the tour and his chance to witness some of the joy that “Girlfriend” brings to his listeners.

“I like to go on tour and see people who want to hear my music, you know, it’s fun to do,” he said. “With ‘Girlfriend,’ it’s kind of exciting because I know there are people out there that are so psycho for that record that they’ll have fun hearing the whole thing, you know? So it’s generally all positive feelings.”

MATTHEW SWEET

Where: 40 Watt

When: 8 p.m.

Price: $16 (adv.)