Dave Matthews Band to take touring hiatus, will not perform in 2011
May 19, 2010 by Beatweek · 2 Comments
Dave Matthews Band has announced that they’ll be taking all of 2011 off after twenty consecutive years of heavy touring. The band has made it clear that they “look forward to returning to the road in 2012″ meaning that this is not any kind of a breakup, but rather merely an extended break. The band had continued to tour even after founding member Le Roi Moore passed away in late 2008 (even performing without him on the day that he died, in an emotionally charged show at the Staples Center in LA), and released new album Big Whiskey and the Groogrux King in 2009.
Meanwhile, Dave Matthews Band still has a very large number of tour dates remaining in 2010, so fans in various cities will have plenty of time to see DMB in concert again this year before having to wait til 2012.
Cinco de Mayo celebration includes Dave Matthews Band
May 5, 2010 by Beatweek · Leave a Comment
Dave Matthews Band is in on the act today when it comes to celebrating Cinco de Mayo, but rather than performing a concert, the band is simply offering a significant price reduction on its T-shirts to five bucks each for the next five days. It may not exactly be the biggest news of the day, but we’re fans of Dave Matthews Band around here, so we’re happy to pass along the news to those of you might also fit that same description. The shirt can be found here in the band’s official online store. Meanwhile DMB is out doing their tour thing, and if you haven’t seen them live at least once, then you haven’t really lived, now have you?
NYC’s Times Square: a happier story from a few years ago
May 2, 2010 by Beatweek · 4 Comments
Not the best of mornings for Times Square in New York City, with an attempted car bombing that went nowhere but was entirely unfortunate nonetheless. Here’s a much happier, if perhaps goofy on my part, story centered in Times Square from about eight years ago…
I’d traveled to Manhattan for the sole purpose of attending MacWorld Expo, and it was a mere one in a million coincidence that Dave Matthews Band just happened to be in town and performing (on the David Letterman Show) the day that I arrived in town. What’s more, I hadn’t even heard about the Letterman thing until a few days earlier, meaning that my only way of getting in would be by scoring standby tickets. You can’t do that until the day of the taping, so the minute my flight touched down at Laguardia, I began dialing the appropriate phone number over and over again, as I was walking through the airport, as I was getting my luggage, as I was waiting for a taxi. At some point during my taxi ride, I finally got through, and managed to get my name on the list. I figured I was in luck. All I had to do was show up outside the Ed Sullivan Theater, and wait in line for awhile.
But no such luck was to be found. When I arrived at 53rd and Broadway, I found out that no standbys would we taken that day. But that didn’t turn out to be such a bad deal after all, because it turned out that the band was actually performing on the roof of the theater (fourteen stories up), and those who were inside for the Letterman taping were not going to be allowed to go to the roof. For that matter, by being inside for the taping, they wouldn’t even get to hear to performance from street level.
So the question lingered: how was I going to get onto that rooftop? I had no idea, but I figured that hanging out next to the band’s six tour buses, parked in the 53rd Street alleyway, probably wasn’t a bad idea. There were barricades that kept anyone from getting near the actual back door of the theater, but there was a place that we were allowed to stand, if we really wanted to. I mean, the band had to come out of their buses and enter the theater at some point, right? I mean, I’m no crazed possessed fan, but then again, seeing them walk past me on their way into a venue might be pretty cool. But then soundcheck suddenly began, implying that either the band members were invisible, or that they’d already entered the theater before I’d arrived. Oh well.
The soundcheck proved that the sound from street-level was only clear enough to tell what the songs were, but not clear enough to actually enjoy listening to them. So rather than stand across the street as most fans were doing, I stayed right with the tour buses behind the barricades, because…well…you never know. Chuck the Bus Driver came over and provided us with interesting, if not revealing, stories of what it’s like to be DMB’s bus driver. Chuck quickly became a cult hero among the fans who were hanging out there…until his presence distracted us from even noticing that the band has just walked past us, unnoticed, back into the buses.
A little later, Chuck made it up to us by bringing DMB touring keyboardist Butch Taylor over to us. Butch signed anything and everything that anyone wanted signed, seemed like a genuinely nice guy. Being fresh off an airplane and completely unprepared, the only thing I could have Butch autograph was my NYC Subway map! Better than nothing. A mere week earlier, I’d sat sixteenth row for one of the band’s concerts, and during Two Step, Butch’s solo was just amazing. So I’m not sure if I can adequately describe the strangeness of the fact that a week later and a thousand miles away, I was now standing there with Butch face-to-face, telling him how much I enjoyed that particular solo.
Someone from the band came down and collected all card-carrying members of the band’s fan club (I was shocked to find out how many people standing there with me were actually able to produce cards, but I wasn’t one of them), and took them to the roof. Strike two. Maybe this wasn’t going to happen after all. A few of us still stuck around though, figuring that perhaps they’d come down and take more people. Sure enough, someone came and took the first few people behind the barricade. I was the first person in line not to get to go. Strike three. But not knowing the rules of baseball, I still stood there, hoping that maybe they’d come down one more time and take just a few more people.
No such luck. The music started playing, and the realization set in that I was not going to make it to the roof. I’d flown 1000 miles that day, yet found myself stopped twenty feet short. Oh well. I hadn’t traveled to New York to see DMB, I’d gone there for MacWorld Expo. Besides, I had just seen the band perform in concert the week before. And I did get to meet Butch Taylor! I was tempted to retreat a few blocks to hear the performance a little better as it echoed off the buildings, but I thought “you know, the band does have to come back out and get on their busses at some point.” So a few of us stayed right there at the barricade throughout the performance. Eventually, the NYPD officer on duty whose job was presumably to keep us from attacking the band, tipped us off that the band was on its way downstairs. Three hours of waiting for something, and now I was going to find out just what it was that I’d been waiting for.
From where the barricades were set up, the band could easily have kept a distance of twenty feet or more from us — in other words, they could have easily ignored us, gotten on their buses, and left town. But when the theater door opens, the band walks out onto the sidewalk, and Dave Friggin’ Matthews immediately walks all the way over to us, starts shaking hands (including mine), signs my Subway map, poses for pictures…unreal. He easily could have avoided us altogether, or just waved at us, but he specifically came over to meet us. He didn’t have to do that.
After spending about a minute with us, someone told Dave it was time to leave, and as Dave started to turn away, my mouth opened and out came “Thank you…Thank you Dave!”, which was exactly what some fan had hollered from the audience after a performance of the all-too-rare song “#40″ on the live “Listener Supported’ album. It was sort of an involuntary reaction. What else do you say to one of your favorite musicians in the world when you meet him? I guess “thank you” sums it up the best.
As the crowd of fans from the rooftop began to trickle out the back door, I thought of what it would have been like to be up there part of it, but then I figured that if I had been up there, I probably wouldn’t have gotten to meet Dave. So it all works out in the end. One person said “I can’t believe I just kissed Dave Matthews!”. It’s was a guy’s voice speaking. Talk about true fans.
So I was scheduled to be in Manhattan for a full week…and in the first eight hours, I had already met Dave Matthews. That set the tone for the rest of the trip, which was simply phenomenal. MacWorld Expo was tremendous. Ground Zero (a mere nine months after 9/11) made me cry. All the usual New York City stuff. And I made sure to get another Subway map for use during the rest of the trip, so that I could stash the autographed one for safe-keeping.
Dave Matthews Band to play Mile High
April 12, 2010 by Beatweek · Leave a Comment
Dave Matthews Band is confirmed as the headlining act for August’s Mile High Music Festival in Commerce City, Colorado. The festival will take place at The Fields at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park on August 14th and 15th with a lineup with also includes Weezer, Jack Johnson, Steve Miller Band, Phoenix, My Morning Jacket, Weezer, Jimmy Cliff, Drive By Truckers, and Keane. Tickets for the event are on sale now.
Dave Matthews Band is touring in support of its 2009 album Big Whiskey and The Groogrux King, which was released as a tribute to founding member LeRoi Moore, who passed away in 2008.
Weezer appeared on the cover of Beatweek Magazine in 2008; the full cover story interview is here.
Keane also appeared on the cover of Beatweek Magazine in 2008; you can read the interview is here.
More details at MileHighMusicFestival.com.
Dave Matthews Band offers live album
April 5, 2010 by Beatweek · Leave a Comment
Dave Matthews Band has opened the live vaults yet again, this time with a concert performance recorded at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in California in 1997. The thirteen year old show was captured while the band was touring in support of its second full-length studio album Crash, and includes performances of now-classic songs from that album including Two Step, #41, Crash Into Me, and the Grammy-winning So Much To Say. The album also includes a cover of Daniel Lanois’ For The Beauty of Wynona which features Los Lobos’ Steve Berlin on saxophone and David Hidalgo on electric guitar. Berlin also duets with the late LeRoi Moore on Jimi Thing. The album is available as an MP3 or FLAC download or as a physical two-CD set.
The full track listing, along with pre-order information, can be found here.
Dave Matthews Band summer tour
January 26, 2010 by Bill Palmer · 1 Comment
Dave Matthews Band, the top touring act of the previous decade, apparently have every intention of getting the early jump on the current decade as well. After performing at this weekend’s GRAMMY awards, in which the band is nominated twice for its 2009 release Big Whiskey And The GrooGrux King, the group will hit the road in May for several dozen live U.S. tour dates which will stretch into mid September.
Opening acts for various legs of the tour will include the Zac Brown Band, Brett Dennen, and four dates with Gov’t Mule. Ben Harper will be on board for the band’s traditional Gorge at George dates in early September.
Fans who don’t want to wait that long can bide their time with the February 9th live-album release of Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds in Las Vegas, a show that was taped at Planet Hollywood in December.
Big Whiskey And The GrooGrux King is available in iTunes. Advance fan club ticketing begins this Thursday on the band’s official site. Tickets go on sale to the general public on February 26th.
New Dave Matthews + Tim Reynolds
January 13, 2010 by Beatweek · Leave a Comment
The latest official live concert release from Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds, this one descriptively titled Live in Las Vegas, is now available for pre-order on CD and is also available in MP3 download format.
The two-CD set includes live acoustic guitar renditions of recent Dave Matthews solo track Eh Hee, several songs from the latest Dave Matthews Band album Big Whiskey and the Groogrux King, a heaping of DMB classics, and a cover of Led Zeppelin’s Kashmir.
Learn more at DaveMatthewsBand.com
