Dave Matthews Band - live
Honestly, the man has an amazing voice and the band is made up of masters of their craft. Llama ventured down to my house for the weekend to see Dave Matthews with my best friend and possibly my brother and his girlfriend. I had been frantically calling ticketmaster, the venue and ticket agencies around the state all week trying to get better tickets to no avail. We could find tickets but the seats weren’t that great and if we were going to try for better tickets, we wanted great seats.
Amanda D. got to my house on Sunday morning and after calming herself down (Driving in Massachusetts is, at best an adventure and at worst a suicide mission. Needless to say I drove for the rest of the day.), we made the trek to pick up my friend Siobhan (pronounced Shivonne). As we got closer toward the stadium we noticed there are a lot of cars with very cute guys and scantily clad women in them. A few things I noticed about Dave Matthews’ fans:
After following a carload of very cute guys to the main gate the security guard informed us that the stadium does not allow anyone to park until 3 o’clock. I looked at my watch and it was only 12:30. Lovely. We got directions to the ticket window and went to find out if there were any tickets left. There was only one ticket window and it didn’t open until 3 o’clock either. Okay, we can deal with this. We’ll go eat some lunch, get to an ATM (Tickets are cash only on the day of the show) and head back here to stake our claim as first in line. Before heading back out to the highway we looked up at the seating chart for the stadium. Yup, just as we had suspected we were the last seats in the last row of the last section furthest from the stage. Lovely.
Lunch was interesting. More scantily clad women and stoned looking men. Anyone else noticing a pattern here? Back at the stadium, I attempted to find an ATM. On the third time past the stadium I figured the guards must have been having a really good laugh at our expense. I can just here it now, "Earl, you see that?" Chewing on a nice wad of tobacco, "Yup, third time they been by in ten minutes." "Think they’re lost?" "Nope, just stupid." You’ve gotta love it. They had closed the gate to the ticket window so we had to find a parking spot-just parking is an adventure.
Along the side of the road businesses make money by letting early birds park on their lots for $20. Amanda D. noticed a nice looking older man in front of a small inn about a half-mile from the stadium. I figured, maybe he’d let us just park the car for a couple of hours then move it. Maybe try the dew eyes and he’d take pity on us. Well, that backfired. Our pockets were $20 lighter and I had this awful feeling that the man was the devil reincarnate.
We walked nonchalantly past the security guards and got in line for tickets. There was a girl who was there about the same time we were but we kicked her out of the way to be first in line. :0) No, just kidding.
And so we wait. And wait. Waiting a bit more…. Hey, let’s wait some more…. Feel like waiting? Yeah, let’s do that.
Around 3:30 the line was pretty long and apparently people had stuck "Information" signs on our foreheads when we weren’t looking because every Tom, Dick and Harry asked us questions. Oh well, so is the burden of being first in line. It was very hot outside and I could feel myself getting more and more sunburned. Am I smart enough to bring suntan lotion? Heck no! That would be intelligent. I was feeling a bit nauseous because it was so hot so by the time they opened the little ticket window I all but stuck my face into the window to feel the air conditioning.
We got five tickets in the 21st row center stage. Needless to say Siobhan and I were a bit excited, teenie, perhaps. We ran to the phone to call my brother and tell them to get their butts down to the stadium. After getting much water and soda we walked back to the stadium and waited around. I had been told that no cameras were allowed but come to find out, if it didn’t have a telephoto lens you could bring it in. Grrrr
When we met up with my brother Jamie and his girlfriend Mary we all worked out tickets and entered the stadium. I love the feeling of a live event. There is so much energy and the energy level Sunday night was definitely off the charts. At the back of the field seating there was the merchandise counter. We all bought t-shirts (Amanda D’s actually looks very much like an Albertane shirt) and I bought my mother a Santana sticker because I thought she was going to wrestle the tickets out of my hand when she found out that Santana was playing. Does she like Santana? Oh yeah, just a little bit. :0) All through the field seats were security guards asking to see our tickets to make sure we weren’t trying to sneak forward and get the good seats. The back seats were red, the middle seats were yellow and the front section was blue. As we got to the 21st row in the yellow section, Jamie started moving into the row. "What are you doing?" "This is us, right?" "No, Jamie," pointing toward the much closer blue section, "We’re up there." "The blue? No way!" Jamie’s a little slow. ;0) We took our seats, which were smack dab in the center of the stage. Lights in an arch shape surrounded the stage; the lights rotated all around so everything, including the audience could be lit. The lights that were above the stage were shaped in X formations that crisscrossed all around. The lighting, I must say, was very cool. On either side of the stage there were huge JumboTron screens with two or three cameras in front of the stage to tape everything.
At six o’clock Dave Matthews and a group of four guys came out on stage. Siobhan, Mary, Amanda D and I drooled pathetically but oh well. Dave mumbled into the microphone about the first ones there get the root (a joke involving the band’s name) and shuffled off-stage. The Roots were cool. They were a rap group but had a great drummer and bass guitarist, which made for some great beats. Next up was Santana and they were great. Black Magic Woman was really good. Carlos Santana is just the best. What else can you say about the man? He’s a legend among legends!! And he has a kickin’ sense of religion and faith. The only problem with Santana was that some UVM (Sorry Amanda) students decided that the empty seats in front of us were just too lonely so they took them. The kid directly in front of poor Amanda was going into epileptic seizures while the music was going on. Amanda tried to say that he was dancing but, trust me, that was *so* not dancing. He was having a seizure of some kind. They finally left when Santana finished.
Santana left the stage around 8:30 and it was starting to get dark and the audience was getting restless. About ten minutes of nine the stadium lights went out and these two huge banners flowed down on either side of the JumboTron screens. They were made of sheer fabric that had the insignia of the band’s latest CD on them. When the band members took to the stage, the lighting started and again, Mary, Siobhan, Amanda and I shamelessly drooled all over ourselves.
The members of the band are as follows:
Boyd Tinsley-Violin
Carter Beauford-Drums
Stefan Lessard-Bass guitar
Dave Matthews-Vocals and acoustic guitar
Leroi Moore-flute, saxophones and wind instruments
They played many of the songs we all wanted to hear including "Don’t Drink the Water," "Ants Marching" and "Stay;" the show was amazing. The band is incredible live and I would recommend going to a show if you can. I was in awe the whole time the band was on-stage and they brought out Bela Fleck who is an incredibly impressive blues banjo player. Just loved every minute of it.
We stayed around for a while but other than finding a few Playboy bunny rejects there was no one around. Just out of curiosity, who in God’s name would splatter glitter all over themselves, put on bunny ears, stiletto heels, an extremely low cut tight shirts and then goes to a concert? It was not pretty at all.
Walking back to the car I realized that drunken men will find anything sexy, including telephone poles and garbage cans. Amanda, Siobhan and I were the subject of many drunken men's fantasies as we tried desperately to not go over and kick their heads in. Not only are drunken men yucky but the ugly ones are the ones who cat call the loudest.
Amanda and I finally got back to my house at 3 a.m. We were a little sleepy to say the least but definitely ready to go back and do it again. :0)