December 22nd, 2006
Jaime Binde
Fighting a cold and a sore throat, which was attributed to something his kindergarten-age daughters brought home from school, Dave Matthews took a few minutes out of his busy Saturday night at the Christmas Jam to talk to the Citizen-Times.
December 21st, 2006
BY FRAN SPIELMAN
After committing nearly $300 million to free agents this winter, the Cubs are more desperate than ever for cash not subject to Major League Baseball's revenue-sharing edict.
Enter the Dave Matthews Band, whose bus driver unloaded 800 pounds of human waste on a tour boat passing under the Kinzie Street bridge in 2004.
The Cubs are asking City Hall for permission to hold their second pair of outdoor concerts in two years -- this time starring Matthews on the weekend that follows July Fourth.
City Council approval is needed next month in order to seal a place in the band's busy schedule. The concerts are expected to be held July 8 and 9.
The concert precedent began in 2005 with a pair of Labor Day concerts by Jimmy Buffett.
November 23rd, 2006
in issue 0547 of the HooK. - By DAVE MCNAIR
In covering the recent dedication of UVA's $43 million state-of-the-art Wilsdorf Hall, the local media seems to have missed the involvement in the project of one of our famous native sons.
While much was made of the $15 million donation by 1971 UVA grad-- and private astronaut-- Gregory Olsen to the center designed to foster collaborative research in materials science and engineering, chemical engineering and nanotechnology, little was mentioned about Dave Matthews' investment in the project. Matthews put in $500,000 for a "connector" to the chemistry library, and the Matthews family foundation put in another $500,000 for a suite of labs.
While Matthews didn't donate as much as Olsen, his involvement was as much personal as financial.
November 9th, 2006
by Tony Kiss
Dave Matthews will make his first appearance in Asheville at this year’s all-star Warren Haynes Christmas Jam, Dec. 16 at the Asheville Civic Center.
Also on the show: Marty Stuart, Robert Randolph, the New Orleans Social Club, The John Popper Project featuring DJ Logic, and Haynes own blues-rock band Gov’t Mule and more.
Tickets, priced at $43.50 and service charges, first go on sale at 3 p.m. Monday to Haynes fans through the Web site www.xmasjam.com and then to the general public at 10 a.m. Nov. 24 at the Civic Center box office and through the Ticketmaster online at www.ticketmaster.com or by phone at 251-5505.
The Civic Center will seat 7,200 for the show, but don’t expect tickets to last long.
“I think this will be the quickest (sell-out) they’ve had,” said Marcia Hart, the Civic Center’s building administrator.
November 7th, 2006
The track list for the new two-disc Dave Matthews Band “Greatest Hits” CD, entitled The Best of What’s Around – Vol.1 is out, and fans everywhere can begin pre-ordering the CD for its November 7 release.
As the hook.net reported in August, the DMB had asked fans for input on track selections via an online poll on their website. Remarkably, the collection “compiled by fans” features two studio tracks from each album on disc one, and no live tracks recorded before 2000 on disc two.
According to Waldo Jaquith, who runs the DMB fan-favorite website, nancies.org, there have been some fan complaints about both discs.
November 2nd, 2006
By David Ferry
As part of a whirlwind tour of Southern California and Las Vegas, Dave Matthews - minus his titular band and plus guitarist extraordinaire Tim Reynolds - stopped by the Santa Barbara Bowl this weekend and managed to blow the sold-out crowds’ minds both nights.
The show was entirely acoustic, and Matthews performed most of the songs swaying from a simple stool. The set-list for the show was often surprising, and quite simply amazing.
After a less-than-stellar summer tour and a letdown of an album, it was a hell of a treat for any long-term Matthews fan - read: stoner - “Warehouse,” “Two Step,” “Crush” and oh so many other classics in one night of Matthews’ magic.
Matthews and Reynolds started the night off-no opening act, no drunken hellos or anything of the sort-with “#41”. And, although Matthews’ voice won’t hold the high notes for as long anymore, and the rasp in his voice seems to grow with each concert, it was a hell of a way to start the show.
October 26th, 2006
in issue 0543 of the HooK. - By VIJITH ASSAR
It seems that finishing up Live From... The Hook would be a big enough task for producer Andy Herz if the production schedule were taken at face value-- after all, he's been working on it for six months, and projects of this magnitude aren't usually put to bed without a fight.
Unfortunately for him, other people have been working on it-- in one form or another, most of the time without realizing it-- for over 20 years.
The crew he assembled to put together the documentary on '80s Charlottesville rock bands will likely subsist entirely on Vivarin and Red Bull between 2am on October 21-- when the doors closed on the Starr Hill reunion show for Virginia rock forefathers Captain Tunes and his Fabulous Noteguns-- and 8pm on October 28, when the film premieres at the Paramount Theater as part of the Virginia Film Festival.
"It's definitely a work in progress," says Herz. "There will still be some polishing and probably some final interviews to do after the 28th."
Director Joe Grafmuller has a pretty focused to-do list: "The biggest thing I'd like to have is Dave Matthews himself in the film," he says. "We have Boyd Tinsley so far, but we're still working on the details of trying to get Dave or Carter or LeRoi or Stefan. Since day one, we've been actively trying to get more of them involved."
October 22nd, 2006
San Jose Mercury News
The 20th installment of the Bridge School Benefit was about old friends and familiar pleasures. On Saturday, event veterans like Foo Fighters, Pearl Jam and the Dave Matthews Band slipped the event's all-acoustic format on like a well-worn glove, while the most intriguing newbie, industrial rock icon Trent Reznor, struggled on his first try.
What the show at Mountain View's Shoreline Amphitheatre lacked in breakthrough performances and surprise guest stars, however, it made up for with glorious weather and some spirited collaborations between the performers and host Neil Young, especially on an epic 'Cortez the Killer' that closed Matthews' set.
As always, current and former students of the Bridge School, a Hillsborough institution for children with severe physical and speech impairments, lined the back of the stage, accompanied by their parents. Included in this group was Neil and Pegi Young's son Ben, now in his late 20s, the impetus for the school's founding. Ben received a standing ovation when he was introduced, along with the rest of the students, to open the show.
Ben's dad opened and closed the show. Young was in fine voice in his initial three-song set, which closed with a duet with Pegi on 'Comes a Time' -- the two were joined by an American Indian drummer and dancer.
October 2nd, 2006
By Leonard Martinez / El Paso Times
You could forgive the Dave Matthews Band if they wanted to phone in their performance opening for the Rolling Stones tonight at the Sun Bowl. After all, DMB has been a huge headlining act of its own for the past 12 years or so.
DMB didn't phone it in though and gave an outstanding performance.
The last time DMB performed in these parts was 10 years ago as part of the HORDE Festival in Las Cruces.
The band took the stage at 6:45 p.m. for a 10-song set that lasted an hour and 10 minutes.
October 2nd, 2006
BY BRADLEY BAMBARGER Star-Ledger Staff
Dave Matthews stands out among abundance of acts at Farm Aid concertAt first, Saturday's Farm Aid concert in Camden summoned memories of Live 8 in Philadelphia last summer -- memories of underwhelming music and not enough topical urgency on stage. If the stateside Live 8 concert, which aimed to raise awareness of global poverty, wasn't much more than a showbiz party, Farm Aid looked as if it might end up being like a high-end state-fair hootenanny, organic but anonymous. That was until Dave Matthews took the Tweeter Center spotlight early in the evening of the day-long show.
The singer not only riveted the capacity crowd of 25,000 with only his guitar as backup; he spoke to the cause at hand -- family farms and their benefits to our health and planet. He countered conventional wisdom with easy charm, showing that a musician can articulate issues and not fear turning people off. The 39-year-old Matthews -- a member of Farm Aid's board alongside founders Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp and Neil Young, who all performed later -- recalled that before he "wanted to be a fireman, I wanted to be a farmer. ... I even love that smell of manure you get through your car window in the country."
October 2nd, 2006
CAMDEN, New Jersey (Billboard) - While Farm Aid may belong more to co-founders Willie Nelson or Neil Young, it was Dave Matthews alone who filled hundreds of seats at the event's 21st annual show, held Saturday near Philadelphia.
As Matthews performed a solo, mostly acoustic set, his faithful (especially his female devotees) beamed and swayed in the aisles at the Tweeter Center in Camden, N.J., matching him word for word.
Like Young and another co-founder, John Mellencamp, Matthews played a six-song set, kicked off by the bouncy "Everyday" and featuring the solo songs "Gravedigger" and most notably, the delicate electric guitar lullaby "Some Devil."
Following performances from political reggae act Steel Pulse, polka king Jimmy Sturr and jam kingpins Gov't Mule, Matthews was one of the few to address the whole point of the show, in more than two or three words: "Every farm should be run by a family -- people who love the earth," he said, in addition to repeatedly (and jokingly) remarking, "There ain't nothing better than a good tomato."
September 30th, 2006
By RYAN CORMIER, The News Journal
CAMDEN, N.J. — It was July 1985 when Bob Dylan stood on stage at Live Aid in Philadelphia’s JFK Stadium and thought out loud, saying that some of the money raised that day should go to help family farmers pay their mortgages.
Two months later, Farm Aid was born, thanks to founders Willie Nelson, Neil Young and John Mellencamp.
Twenty-one years later, Farm Aid made a homecoming of sorts to the Philadelphia area Saturday, holding its annual fundraising concert at the Tweeter Center in front of a sold out crowd of 25,000.
As always, the show was made up of an eclectic mix of music, from the country rock of Steve Earle and the prolonged jams of Gov’t Mule to the reggae of Steel Pulse and the Tex-Mex sounds of Los Lonely Boys.
September 29th, 2006
Dave Matthews and friends aim to keep farmers on their land
By CHUCK DARROW
Back in the 1960s and early '70s, Manhattan-attorney-turned-rural-farmer Oliver Wendell Douglas (played by the late Eddie Albert on the CBS-TV sitcom, Green Acres), often would launch into an impassioned speech about the importance of the American farmer to the nation's social and economic health and well-being.
Those monologues -- always delivered with the strains of patriotic fife music in the background -- were offered strictly for laughs. Decades later, rock superstar Dave Matthews is echoing the character's sentiments, but comedy has nothing to do with it.
"Our view of what a farmer is, the one we imagine in our head, by the silos, near the barn, tending to his pigs, tending to his cattle, or tending to the fields, is really being erased," insisted the 39-year-old South African-born, Virginia-based "jam band" avatar. He was on the phone in advance of Saturday's Farm Aid concert at Camden's Tweeter Center.
September 28th, 2006
in issue 0539 of the HooK.| By Vijith Assar
The tickets for Saturday night's event are labeled "Grand Opening"-- not entirely true, strictly speaking, but forgivable since this weekend's double-shot of DMB introduced Charlottesville's newest venue to at least twice as many fans as any other show it has scheduled for this season.
For 365 days out of the year, the John Paul Jones Arena will cast over 29N the sort of shadow that only a $130 million construction budget can create. It's a tremendous, state-of-the-art facility with the potential to be a fantastic host for both music and sports alike.
But on Saturday night, September 23, none of that matters. As Dave Matthews Band takes the stage for the second their two-night, first-time-in-five-years homecoming shows, drummer Carter Beauford announces himself with a single bass drum hit that vibrates the spleen only slightly less than it does the building, now cowering in fear as it's stripped of its grandeur by the band about to pulverize it.
Sorry, Jacko, but DMB eats venues like you for breakfast.
September 27th, 2006
By Dan DeLuca - Inquirer Music Critic
Dave Matthews, youngest of the Farm Aid principals, really plows into this cause close to his heart.
Among the Farm Aid four, Dave Matthews is the baby of the bunch.
The jam-band star and Virginia gentleman farmer - a headliner at the annual benefit concert, to be held Saturday at Camden's Tweeter Center, along with Willie Nelson, Neil Young and John Mellencamp - was a teenager in his native South Africa when the first Farm Aid took place in 1985.
Nelson organized that show after Bob Dylan made remarks in support of American farmers at Live Aid in Philadelphia that year. Nelson, 73, Young, 60, and Mellencamp, 56, have performed at every Farm Aid since.
Matthews, now 39, played his first Farm Aid in 1995, back when his enormously popular Dave Matthews Band was not so enormous. "Dave was just starting out," recalled Mellencamp, who invited him to play along with another band that was breaking that year - Hootie and the Blowfish. "He hadn't become Dave Matthews yet. But he came and played that year in Kentucky, and he got really into it."
September 26th, 2006
by Thom Jurek
The sixth volume in the Dave Matthews Band's Live Trax series is a whopping four-disc box. It's sold fairly cheap — $29.98 — and there are no frills. It contains two complete concerts recorded in July of 2006 at Fenway Park in Boston. Like the other recordings in this series, the sound is gorgeous.
The track selection between the two evenings contains no song duplications. Trumpeter Rashawn Ross guests on the majority of the tunes, and keyboard wiz Butch Taylor is here throughout. Of the two performances, the July 7th gig is more passionate and has a more upbeat feel, especially on the raw, from-the-heart version of "Crash into Me," which contains a riff from Lowell George's "Dixie Chicken," and what immediately follows, in "Jimi Thing," where Stephen Stills' "For What It's Worth" makes an appearance. (The latter worked better when Robert Randolph guested on it to dress it up.) It's a more song-oriented gig in general, though there are four long jams in the first concert.
September 23rd, 2006
BY MELISSA RUGGIERI TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Dave Matthews strolled out with his bandmates, hugged his acoustic guitar to his chest and waited. For about four minutes, the band wandered around the stage, smiling, pointing at the screeching crowd and simply reveling in their homecoming.
For a guy who earned his first paychecks as a musician playing dingy clubs and making drunken frat boys feel invincible, it was only fitting that Matthews' return to Charlottesville was adjacent to the U.Va. campus.
He and his unwaveringly solid band kicked into the opening "Rapunzel" sounding so crisp that the notes practically broke in midair. For more than two hours last night, the Dave Matthews Band officially christened the new John Paul Jones Arena (which technically opened last month) with a set list that zigzagged through its 15-year career, but always retained a special layer of comfort for a hometown crowd that included Gov. Tim Kaine and his family.
September 22nd, 2006
By Matt Deegan
His charitable fund allows 42 underprivileged Charlottesville musicians to take private lessons and provides one-on-one tutoring for disadvantaged city students. He helped the University of Virginia host a professional woman’s tennis tournament. UVa even named a tennis center for him after he donated $1 million to help build it. If an “All-Charlottesville” team were to be drafted, who would get picked first – Boyd Tinsley, hometown author John Grisham or king of all things music, Dave Matthews?
The story of Matthews, a community-college dropout who bartended and reluctantly tried out his material at a local watering hole, Miller’s, is branded in local lore. His return to Charlottesville always prompts its retelling.
Matthews launched his music career here. However, Tinsley, the violinist in the Dave Matthews Band, laid his roots in Charlottesville and was first exposed to classical music in its school system.
His wife and two children still live in the city and he frequently makes local appearances to support classical music and tennis, his other passion. His charitable fund recently donated $75,000 to the city schools to finance private lessons, academic tutoring and equipment for tennis.
September 22, 2006
Imagine showing up for the Dave Matthews concert tonight, ticket in hand, only to be informed at the door that your ticket is worthless. Such may be the fate of someone who bought their ticket from a reseller for higher than the original face value, due to a policy of canceling resold tickets.
John Paul Jones Arena has an anti-scalping system for online tickets where tickets are canceled if they are resold for a price higher than face-value. While the arena has every right to set the terms for the sale of its tickets, reselling tickets is not illegal and tickets should not be cancelled regardless of how they were obtained.
Larry Wilson, general manager of John Paul Jones Arena, was not available for comment for this editorial, but he told The Cavalier Daily that the canceling of resold tickets is often undertaken at the request of the artists. But just because artists are requesting the action rather than other parties doesn't give them any more legitimacy. Many recording artists were pushing the crackdown on music downloading that led to lawsuits against students and universities, proving that artists aren't always looking out for students' best interests.