Photos by Tim Dwenger
The Scene: As I arrived at Fiddler’s Green Amphitheater, a cool breeze drifted through a sea of displaced 90’s youth. It was a high school reunion of fellow ants marching back to taste the nostalgia. Quasi-hippies were peppered in a drove of collared shirts and bent brim ball caps. The will call line wrapped around several buildings and was still thousands deep when the band began their acoustic set.
Dave Matthews Band: Dave Matthews Band has long been known for their highly energetic live show, and the promise of an acoustic set to kick things off was cause for excitement. It had been more than 15 years since I last saw Dave and Company, and I’d be lying if I said the addition of Béla Fleck didn’t play a major role in why I agreed to review the show. After my extremely tardy entrance due to the ridiculously long and poorly managed will call line, I had the opportunity to hear the band play “Spaceman” and “Cornbread” with Béla on banjo before set break. The fact that I wasn’t familiar with either of these tunes reminded me how long I’d been disconnected from the Dave Matthews experience.
While Dave was happy to let his hired guns shine, he still took the spotlight plenty as he crooned metaphoric poetry and melted MILF-hearts. The crowd was largely polite, and I heard more than one conversation about entitled Prius drivers…ho ho, yesterday’s hippies have turned into today’s yuppies.
While I was impressed and surprised at how much material I wasn’t familiar with at this show due to my long layoff from seeing DMB live, “What Would You Say” and the New Orleans Funk vibe, heavy horns and calypso rhythms of “Warehouse” created a wormhole that transported me through the neural net and landed me in Hershey Park, 1998. Though I wasn’t familiar with the band’s more recent material, the rhythmic acoustic guitar, violin fills, and stunning drumming from Carter Beauford remained hallmarks of a sound that has been going strong for more than 20 years now.
Though the energy emanating from the stage for most of the evening was rather average, about half-way through the electric portion of the evening, Fleck and guitarist Tim Reynolds shined on a the back-to-back pairing of “#41” and “Lie In Our Graves” that reminded me of why I used to go out of my way to see this band. Fortunately, I was able to catch these old school favorites from one of the few crisp sounding spots on the entire lawn and trust me, as the tour had only provided me with a lawn seat I had the opportunity to meander around the lawn and unfortunately, on the whole, the sound was washed out, echoey, and muddy through much of the general admission portion of the amphitheater.
Though in the end it was largely enjoyable, watching the show felt a little like flirting with an old girlfriend…I knew it wasn’t heading anywhere for me, but it was nice to spend a little time together. It was astounding how much had changed and yet everything remained the same.
Energy: B-
Musicianship: A
Sound: C
Stage Presence: B+
Set/Light Show: B+
Overall: B
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