Matchbox Twenty and Goo Goo Dolls on a like-minded hits parade

7 p.m. Saturday. $18.25-$93.25. Aaron’s Amphitheatre at Lakewood, 2002 Lakewood Way, Atlanta. 1-800-745-3000, www.ticketmaster.com.

Between them, they’ve sold more than 40 million albums and provided more than 30 catchy-chorus songs to radio since the ’90s.

Now it seems like the most obvious pairing in music to hitch Matchbox Twenty and the Goo Goo Dolls to the same touring caravan.

But until the co-headlining tour that kicked off in June — and heads to Atlanta on Saturday — the two hit machines had never shared a bill.

“It’s weird since we share so many fans,” Rob Thomas, MB20’s frontman, said recently from a tour stop in Missouri. “Since we started doing well, we’ve always been concerned about the fans and bringing them a great package, whether it was with Lifehouse, Train, Alanis (Morissette), Jewel. We want the people, from the minute the first band hits the stage, to have a great night.”

John Rzeznik, the cool-haired leader of the Goos, is slightly less chatty by nature than his Matchbox counterpart, but agrees that the bands have been enjoying a laid-back vibe backstage.

“It’s kinda fun to walk into catering and sit down with those guys,” Rzeznik said from a tour stop in Colorado. “It’s definitely good for both bands.”

Of course, both acts also have the challenge of carving out set lists that satisfy fans, but also allow the bands to play some new material.

MB20 is retaining its ubiquity on radio — a trend that started in the mid-’90s with the string of hits from its Atlanta-recorded debut, “Yourself or Someone Like You” — with “She’s So Mean” and “Our Song,” two earworms from “North,” the band’s current album released last fall.

The Goo Goo Dolls (Rzeznik, bassist Robby Takac and drummer Mike Malinin), meanwhile, dropped their 10th album, “Magnetic,” last month and are enjoying a successful run at adult-alternative radio with “Rebel Beat.”

But they can’t ignore their platinum-paved past, either.

Could you imagine a Matchbox Twenty set without “Bent,” “3 a.m.,” “If You’re Gone,” or “Unwell”?

Or the Goos not playing “Name,” “Iris” or “Black Balloon”?

Fortunately for fans, all of those songs have made appearances on the tour.

“Our thinking is, if someone is going to drive that far to hear you play and spend that dough, you gotta give them the hits,” Rzeznik said. “We try to keep the tempo up, which is a challenge because a lot of our biggest hits were ballads.”

But, while Rzeznik is of the mentality that pleasing a crowd comes down to, “playing the right song and playing it well,” the Goos are complementing their music with a snazzy stage setup of video walls.

While both bands have ridden radio crests of No. 1 hits, they’ve also coped through some lean years.

“North” is only Matchbox Twenty’s fourth album in a 17-year career, but the quartet (rounded out by drummer Paul Doucette, guitarist Kyle Cook and bassist Brian Yale) always seemed to be in the public consciousness thanks to Thomas’ soaring solo career (he won three Grammys for co-writing Carlos Santana’s “Smooth,” among other accomplishments).

So when “North” debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart — a first for the band — it was especially sweet to realize fans and radio still cared.

“That was really special,” Thomas said. “Because my solo record (2005’s “… Something to Be”) debuted at No. 1, there’s always been a healthy competition. We’re lucky that we’ve built a lot of good relationships at radio. We came out at the end of a certain era in the industry, and we were able to grow and tour for three years after our first record. And when you sell 12 million copies of a record (as “Yourself or Someone Like You” did), there’s a good chance that’s going to be a fluke, so we’re always appreciative of radio and the fans that keep coming back.”

Rzeznik — who married his Argentinian girlfriend Melina Gallo last week in Los Angeles — is equally gratified by the continued support of the Goo Goo Dolls, but acknowledges that radio has become more difficult to penetrate.

“Hot AC, where we’ve been a core artist for 15 years, it’s becoming more rhythmic, more Top 40, so it’s a little bit harder. But if we have the right song, we’ll win,” he said.

It’s a tactic that has served both bands well.