Article Archives

September 13th, 2006

By Mark Brown, Rocky Mountain News

The Dave Matthews Band sauntered onto stage and took its time getting settled into its first song. The crowd didn't mind. It wasn't a concert so much at times as just hanging out. The crowd savored the band, and the band gave back the same vibe. Neither side was in any particular hurry to start or end each song.

It was quite a different feel than when the band was here last summer, playing four intense concerts at Red Rocks (a stand Matthews alluded to early on, thanking the crowd for joining him "up on the hill there"). Tuesday night's show at the Pepsi Center was a high-tech affair with great screens and effects that never took away from the musicianship onstage (and it's worth noting that Matthews offered all this at a fraction of the price other artists do, with tickets at $55).

September 9th, 2006

GROUP SOUNDING, PLAYING BETTER THAN EVER

By Jim Harrington MediaNews

It's odd to think of a two-night stand at Shoreline Amphitheatre asdownsizing for a rock act.

Yet, that's exactly what it was for the Dave Matthews Band when itvisited the 22,000-capacity Mountain View venue on this past Fridayand Saturday nights. That's because the last two times through theBay Area DMB performed at even bigger venues -- drawing some 50,000fans to a free show at Golden Gate Park in 2004 and then performingtwo nights at AT&T Park last year.

Equally odd was that one could see green on the Shoreline lawn --enough green to build a few new duplexes -- as the band took the stageon Friday. That was not only a sign of DMB's dip in popularity as alive act, especially from a few years back when it could sell outmultiple nights at football stadiums, but a clear example of thegeneral downturn in overall concert attendance. Even the biggest actsin the concert industry, of which DMB certainly qualifies as one, arehaving a hard time filling places like Shoreline to capacity.

September 7th, 2006

By Jim Harrington, STAFF WRITER Inside Bay Area

THE Dave Matthews Band isn't quite as popular as it was a few years ago, back in the days when the group could sell out multiple nights at football stadiums. But popularity is just one measure of artistic success. In terms of sheer musicianship, the Dave Matthews Band is currently at the absolute height of its game.

That was the case when the group performed Wednesday night at Raley Field in Sacramento, and it likely will be the case again tonight and Saturday when Dave and pals hit the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View.

It was a warm, clear night, with a full moon in the sky and nary a hint of wind as folks crowded into downtown Sacramento. Although best known as the home of the River Cats — the triple-A affiliate of the Oakland A's — Raley Field is a pretty ideal spot for live music. It's close to many good restaurants and, despite being roughly the same size as a regular amphitheater, it feels intimate. In all, it's a very nice alternative to the nearby Sleep Train Amphitheatre.

September 5th, 2006

By TRAVIS HAY

GEORGE -- Every time the Dave Matthews Band performs at The Gorge Amphitheatre it's one big party, and Sunday night's performance was no exception.

The show was the group's 24th concert at the Central Washington venue, and the set list consisted mostly of deeper album tracks.

The back-to-back performance of "Jimi Thing" and "Tripping Billies" was the closest DMB came to playing any of its singles, and those songs are more fan favorites that radio hits.

The crowd didn't seem to mind the lack of hits and the set list made for a well-rounded and musically varied show. Fans sang and danced along to "Crush," "Can't Stop," "The Dreaming Tree" and other rare delights.

There's no denying Matthews is a talented frontman, and his bandmates elevate the band's live show into something that seemingly transcends music for DMB fans.

August 31st, 2006

Group has something for the college kid in everyone at the Bowl

By Zeke Barlow

HOLLYWOOD —To be honest, I had more hair the first time I saw the Dave Matthews Band play. But so did Matthews.

It was 1994 and he was headlining a Richmond, Va., outdoor concert for 5,000 college hippies drunk on the potential of their lives stretching out before them. Matthews and his jam/jazz band were on the edge of their own leap into a limitless future that surely held greater stardom and the coveted title of rock stars.

The band had put out two independent-label records that garnered a huge 20-something following that danced and swayed Deadhead-style, though Matthews' playing was always crisper than Jerry's ramblings.

I grew older, saw a few more shows where I danced and swayed and, over time, like others, wasn't as much of a fan of his slicker, highly produced CDs aimed at catapulting him into stardom. But catapult they did. The group earned one Grammy trophy from five nominations.

August 29th, 2006

By Paul Gargano

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Dave Matthews walked onstage in front of the sold-out crowd at Verizon Amphitheater on Friday night as if he didn't have a worry in the world.

He strolled around the open stage for a minute or so, checked out the crowd and made a few gestures in recognition of their ovation, strapped a guitar over his shoulder and couldn't have been any more nonchalant as he broke into the opener, "Pantala Naga Pampa/Rapunzel."

And for the next two hours and 45 minutes, the music erased every worry in the world throughout the crowd -- from the young set, embracing their generation's more mainstream and pop-minded descendent of the Grateful Dead, to middle-age aficionados who marveled at Matthews and his six-piece live band's acute blend of world music flair, jazz-fueled funk and soul-soaked charisma.

August 29th, 2006

BY ROB LOWMAN, Entertainment Editor

"If you can't have fun at a Dave Matthews concert, where can you have fun?" asked pretty dark-haired Rachel Musquiz rhetorically.

It was her birthday. She was turning 23 and she was ready to party along with 17,000 others Monday night at the Hollywood Bowl.

Never underestimate the power of wanting to have a good time, and Matthews and his band delivered the party favors to a crowd that ranged in their 20s to there 50s, with some looking like Ivy Leaguers and others more at home at a Hell's Angels convention. One guy a couple of rows up from me didn't take off his sunglasses all night.

August 28th, 2006

REVIEW: What brought euphoria last summer felt rote at Dave Matthews Band's Irvine stop.

By BEN WENER - The Orange County Register

The problem with reviewing jam bands in their natural habitat – an outdoor amphitheater packed with frat boys and neo-hippies and engulfed in clouds of pot smoke – is that they defy any sensible analysis, any possible summation of a commonly shared experience.

Reactions to such shows are subjective in the extreme. One acidhead's brilliant half-hour exploration of "Dark Star" is another toker's snoozefest, while the Phish-head who still avidly trades tapes of endless gigs may never get the slightest charge out of an hour from the String Cheese Incident.

Who and what you respond to is deeply personal. And that's what makes encounters with Dave Matthews Band so potentially maddening.

August 21st, 2006

Fort Worth Star-Telegram - By CARY DARLING

Cargo shorts, T-shirts, beer cups, and the Dave Matthews Band. They kind of go together like baseball, hot dogs and Mom's apple pie, especially when doing a slow-bake in an oven-hot Dallas on Saturday night.

But even if the weather hadn't been akin to standing downwind from Satan's breath, the sold-out Smirnoff Music Center would have been full of the dressed-down and wired-up, ready to party with their favorite nice guy next door: singer-guitarist Dave Matthews.

Clad in his usual T-shirt and slacks, he doesn't cut a stylish figure on stage, seems pleasant enough but doesn't show a ton of personality, and his voice is serviceable but hardly earth-shaking. What he does have, though, is a phenomenal band. It got to show off what it can do with its pop-R&B-jazz-jam band mix in a generous 2 1/2 -hour set.

August 20th, 2006

By MATT WEITZ - The Dallas Morning News

There are a lot of bands that were red-hot 10 years ago, but few have managed as comfortable a transition to elder statesmen status as the Dave Matthews Band.

JUSTIN COOK/DMN Dave Matthews' theatrical vocals and spidery acoustic guitar playing were just part of the drama that earned thunderous approval from the sold-out audience on Saturday.

That was apparent Saturday night at DMB's sold-out show at Smirnoff Music Centre. From the very first notes of "Best of What's Around" (from the group's name-making 1994 release Under the Table and Dreaming), it was clear that the crowd was inclined to greet Dave's every grunt and smirk with a thunderous wave of adulation.

August 18th, 2006

By John Lyman - Pine Crest School

What's the only thing better than catching the Dave Matthews Band concert in South Florida? I'm sure there are a lot of appropriate answers (world peace, universal healthcare, child-birth), but "seeing the performance twice" would certainly make the list. Of the 19,227 people crammed into Sound Advice Amphitheater for the sold-out band's second concert last week, returning patrons would probably agree.

With a famously eclectic sound that combines the violin, guitar, saxophone, and trumpet, the generation-bridging band appeared on stage for nearly two-and-a-half hours each night. This would not be a huge feat if the performers weren't already two months into their tour, but the 39-year-old front man led with the energy one would expect from a once-in-a-lifetime gig. But I guess that is what one should expect from a band that was founded in 1991 on the principle of long tours -- and lots of them.