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by David Lindquist

After writing what I believed to be a generally positive review of the Dave Matthews Band show Friday at Verizon Wireless Music Center, my voicemail and e-mail were hammered by quite a bit of negativity.

I'm pretty sure two words put me in the doghouse of DMB fans, and these words weren't published in The Star.

When I filed my review Friday night, the closing sentence read: "And there would be no harm in shelving subdued nonstarters such as 'The Stone' (which opened Friday's program) and recently revived oldie 'JTR.'"

An editor trimmed the words "recently revived" before the story went to press, perhaps because the reference wouldn't make sense to a general reader without some useful context.

June 2nd, 2006

By David Lindquist

The Dave Matthews Band played a wealth of love songs and focused on its improvisational strengths Friday at Verizon Wireless Music Center. The concert for an audience of 21,000 fell short of perpetual brilliance, but it featured enough gems to signal a strong second performance tonight.

A highlight among Friday's romantic tunes was "The Idea of You," which made its public debut during the show.

Band leader Matthews belted high vocal notes and played a small 12-string guitar for "Idea," which celebrated the youthful feeling of falling in love. The lyrics even included promises to refrain from pulling a girl's hair or kicking her shins.

Despite the song's evident charms, it's still a bare framework lacking an instrumental spark in its second half. Elsewhere, however, Matthews and his bandmates stretched older material to impressive lengths. Violin player Boyd Tinsley stepped up first, rallying "Crush," another lovey-dovey selection, to a full-band triumph.

By Gavin Martin

In the States, with sales of more than 30 million, Dave Matthews is a superstar. In the UK, however, his band's blend of jam-band folk-blues and world music barely registers. Yet, with a substantial portion of the audience comprising itinerant members of US and Australian colleges, tickets for tonight's show were fetching £200 on the black market. The chance to see him thrashing an acoustic guitar in a 700-capacity venue rather than the Stateside enormo-dromes where his multi-racial Charlottesville-bred band usually hold court doesn't come along often.

Shambling onstage with a minimum of fuss, Matthews hoists up his trousers and adjusts his belt-buckle. After the first of many rambling but humorous monologues, he plays "Bartender", blues with a tribal beat, encompassing rasping vocals and a coda of wordless wailing. Combined with the garrulous between-song tales the performance calls to mind a stoner-Springsteen without the E Street band.

Words & Images by Gabriela Kerson

Dave Matthews & Friends Caribbean Cruise Getaway :: 02.03 - 02.06

My favorite movie of all time is Festival Express. I love seeing all those talented people hanging out, drinking, and jamming together while they travel on a continuous loop to nowhere. I was ecstatic therefore when I found out I was going on the Dave Matthews and Friends Cruise as a production assistant with Soulive. The organizers had collected a brilliant cross-section of the best bands on the scene. There were two ships filled with a total of just under 5,000 people and 1,800 crew. The Sovereign of the Seas sailed from Port Canaveral, and The Majesty left from Miami. The fourteen bands were divided down the middle and sent onto the separate ships. Our destination was a secret island for a Dave Matthews and Friends show, but as with Festival Express, it turned out the real fun was just getting there.

Flying out of LaGuardia on an unseasonably warm February afternoon, I almost couldn't believe my luck, except I was sitting next to top music personality Reggie Watts, and he wouldn't shut up. Fortunately, he also had me laughing. We landed in Miami and were met by a tech guy who picked us out from the crying babies with no trouble at all. I guess with our shades and ragged clothes we must have looked like rock stars, or at least like New Yorkers.