Aimsterville

In the midst of all the buildup for their new album and hot on the heels of the release of their first new single in four years, the Dave Matthews Band has embarked on their first North American Spring tour since 2002. And as they scheduled a stop at my “hometown venue” (three hours away) in Charlotte, NC, with no guarantee of a return during the late summer and no guarantee of a winter tour, I figured I’d better take a day off from my non-blogging job and get my ass there.

As I did with the Busch Stadium show in St. Louis last year, I went alone to this show and enjoyed doing so this time so much that I think that experience warrants its own post, so I’ll get to that at some point. But for now, I think I’ll just stick to discussing the concert itself.

At the last minute, I upgraded my ticket to a 20th row, “limited view” seat, selling my near-the-back-of-the-pavilion seat to a grateful group looking for just one more ticket, which led to them calling me a “good Christian woman” (not so much) and letting me know that “Karma will smile upon me” (I damn sure hope so–and I hope I know when it happens). “Limited view” meant in my case that a stack of amps would allow me to see Carter Beauford’s hands only when he hit the high cymbals and to see bassist Stefan Lessard only if he bounced out to center stage, while I wouldn’t see the horn section of Jeff Coffin and Rashawn Ross at all. And I was just fine with all of that because the trade-off meant that I had access to the lower section of the pavilion for potential sneaking-down-to-the-front purposes. Plus, I had a seat right on the aisle for prime leaving-to-go-to-the-bathroom purposes and grabbing-a-security-guard-if-anyone-decides-to-get-frisky-with-me purposes and plenty-of-room-to-dance-because-I-can-step-out-into-the-aisle-a-little purposes. So it was all good.

But, um, yeah…the music. Beginning with openers The Avett Brothers (whom I’d never heard before, but I was certainly impressed with their abilities and their odd mix of rock/country/bluegrass/Americana/I’m not quite sure what to call it enough that I want to listen more), I was in a state of pure bliss for four hours. The Boys came on around 8:30 and started off strong with “Pantala Naga Pampa→Rapunzel” and then slowed things down with “Where are You Going” (a song that’s reviled by most of the fanbase, but I can still sing along to it and have a good time) and “Stay or Leave,” which was a special treat for me as it’s one of my favorite solo Dave songs and I’d never seen it live before. The band then went into “Recently,” which wasn’t a total surprise as I’d heard them soundchecking it as I was walking through the parking lot, but they’ve changed it up from last year, adding the classic “Pretty Girl” and “On Broadway” outros that I’ve loved listening to on old show tapes from the early ’90s.

After “Recently,” the show really kicked into high gear with a cover of the Talking Heads classic “Burning Down the House,” that not only got the crowd up dancing and singing along to every word, but also featured some fine guitar work from both Dave and Tim Reynolds. And although “Crush” could be considered a mellow song following such a powerhouse, it’s enough of a fan favorite (and a personal favorite), that you could feel the energy just continue to build throughout the venue. That momentum could have been lost with the introduction of a new song into the set–”Why I Am” from the upcoming album–but once Dave revealed that the song was a favorite of the late LeRoi Moore as they were working in the studio, you could sense that the crowd was going to give the song a shot to honor Roi’s memory if nothing else. Turns out the song is catchy, with tribute lyrics to Roi (“still here dancing with the Groogrux King”) and a hard-driving forward momentum that makes the song fun to sing and dance to. I think this tune is my favorite of the new ones so far (see below).

The Boys followed up “Why I Am” with another new song from Big Whiskey–”Spaceman.” This song is a mellow groove, and combined with its newness I think the crowd energy deflated a bit (although I really like the song and I think, given time, it could grow to be a fan favorite). But the guitar jam at the end of the song segued nicely into “Cornbread,” an unreleased ode to dirty clandestine sex, and the crowd was quickly back in orbit again.

And then this happened:

#41

So Much to Say→

Anyone Seen the Bridge→

Too Much (fake)→

Tripping Billies

This is 30+ minutes of balls-out, make-you-dance-until-you’re-a-puddle-of-sweat music right there, folks. The version of “#41″ felt like it lasted 41 minutes all by itself, and I mean that in a good way.

And this “#41″ will forever go down in my personal DMB history as the moment I totally fell for Jeff Coffin as DMB’s sax man. I have to admit that part of the reason I was happy about the “limited view” ticket was that this show would be my first since LeRoi Moore died, and I thought it might be a little weird to see the difference on stage left. And while Roi will forever live on in the hearts of the faithful, Jeff Coffin, quite simply, tore some shit up. And while Roi was always stationary on stage, Jeff moved around and played off Carter, Stefan, and Tim at various points, which to me only added to the intensity of his performance.

After the five song run that ended with “Tripping Billies,” which gave more head-fakes–from the long pause before “Anyone Seen the Bridge” to the switch from “Too Much” to “Tripping Billies”–than a rookie pitcher with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth, the band switched back to new music and played the single “Funny the Way It Is.” I happen to really like this song, but as I’ve said before, it’s definitely a single–and I don’t think this one has found its live footing yet. Both violinist Boyd Tinsley’s and Tim Reynolds’ solos sounded a little off to me, and the crowd didn’t seem to be as into the song as I would have liked to have seen (which didn’t stop me from singing along at the top of my lungs, to the probable annoyance of everyone sitting around me). I’ll have to revisit this post in two years to see if this song has evolved live into something more than what it is now, which is clearly a short and sweet radio single.

The main set concluded with two of my favorites that I got to see live for the first time last year–”So Damn Lucky” and “Grey Street.” “Grey Street” probably ranks as one of my top two or three favorite songs by DMB, so I was happy to end the set on such a high note. But my enthusiasm for “Grey Street” was almost overshadowed by what I hoped was coming in the encore: the liberation of “Blue Water,” a song from the early days that’s been partially played on this tour for the first time since 1995. And, once again, the band stopped short in Charlotte, only playing a verse with just the slightest instrumental afterwards. I’m putting my money on the band not bringing this song back in its full version because 1) it’s a slow song with lyrics about suicide, 2) the song has one verse of lyrics followed by about 15 minutes of instrumental jamming (totally freaking awesome jamming, but jamming nonetheless), and 3) no one but the true DMB diehards know what this song is, so I think they risk losing the crowd if they play more than a few minutes of it. Seriously–most people seemed to be talking during the partial version at Charlotte, and when the tiny jam started to fade out and I knew we weren’t going to get the full version, I started saying “Do it! Do it!”–as if I could will the band into playing the whole thing–and the girl standing next to me looked at me like I’d just hopped on the the express bus to Crazytown.

So then there was “Crash Into Me,” DMB’s biggest single and, for my money, never a disappointment to hear. And while it’s rare to see this song in an encore anymore, I noticed at the end of the main set a girl in the center section was holding up a sign that said “Play Crash Into Me–It’s My Birthday,” so I’d like to think that the band obliged her before launching into “Stay (Wasting Time)” which, in many ways, is the perfect song to end either a main set or an encore. “Makes you wanna, makes you wanna…stay”…I couldn’t agree more.

But the show was done, and as always, I was leaving happy. And although I was too much of a chicken to sneak down front during the show, I did wander down after “Stay” to see if I could catch one of Carter’s drumsticks. My promised Karma, however, did not kick in, as I watched one sail over my head to a guy standing behind me. So now I’m guessing that I’ll have to wait until next year to cash in that ticket-selling Karma, which will result, naturally, in my somehow meeting the band.

Unless, of course, I used up that Karma due to the fact that I made it out of the parking lot/traffic cluster fuck and back the three miles to my hotel in under an hour. In which case, I’m going to be very, very pissed at Karma.