Weekend (9 Sep) - DMB Shines

Weekend (9 Sep) - DMB Shines

The Dave Mathews Band concert was every bit as good as we expected. The Cricket Amphitheater is a great venue with great sight lines and a superb audio setup. We were just to the right of center stage and toward the back of the main seating area, but there is enough elevation in the outdoor arena that we could see everything going on.

The opening act was singer Alan Stone. I didn't know anything about him. The short bio on his website mentioned that he began touring about four years ago and sings R&B/soul. Stone has a self published digital album - ie, he isn't working with a label. He does have an incredible voice, and his songs were easy to listen to. He likes to sprinkle some jazzy riffs into his songs, which sort of helped to overlook a sameness to all of his songs. Likable music, but not something I'd go out and buy. The crowd really wanted to get to DMB, and Stone several times had to almost plead for the crowd to get loud, with not much success. The sell out crowd didn't even start to really fill up the place until Stone was two-thirds of the way through his set.

This is the second time we've seen DMB in concert. If anything, Dave and his band have gotten even better. He opened with the song "Why I Am," a big hit from his last album, which got everyone on their feet, and played almost non-stop for the next three hours. He also showcased several of the new songs on the album that should be out next week, called "Away From The World." In keeping with DMB's fan centric approach, the entire album is available to listen to on iTunes. There were plenty of folks taking pictures and video-recording the concert as well. The only caveat is that they didn't allow "professional video/audio" equipment to be used.

One of the things that make DMB concerts so good are the way they can extend songs into something like a battle of the instruments, with every member of the band getting a chance to chime in. Their saxophonist was a little off early on, but then he was playing several instruments over the course of the evening and was soon spot on. DMB is heavy on sax, trumpet, clarinet, flute, violin, etc, with guitar taking mostly a back seat - until near the end, when Dave let them really go crazy. Vocals, of course, are prominent. Dave engaged in his own musical battle with the instruments, using his incredible voice as it's own instrument, sometimes in gibberish, which was both awesome and hilarious at the same time.

DMB rotated between stand and dance numbers and softer stuff, but no matter the song nearly everybody knew the words and sang along. I didn't realize just how loud the singing in the stands had gotten until Dave stopped singing for a couple of stanzas and the crowd loudly filled in the words for him.

The funny moment of the evening for us came early in the concert during Alan Stone's set. This is an outdoor venue, that also has a very large, open lawn seating area. We caught a whiff of what we was sure was a skunk, and for maybe thirty minutes the sharp odor would spike up, carried by the light breeze. It wasn't until a lot later, with the odor still making itself known irregularly, that it dawned on us that what we were smelling was a particularly pungent variety of pot. I can't say that breathing that in for three hours gave me a high, but I did come away with a behind the eyes headache I still have this morning. And no, it couldn't have been the beer. :-)