Dave Matthews Band sounds better every time I see them. (I’ve been seven? eight? times… not sure.) Last night was one of the best lineups I’ve seen. They now have two horn players to replace the deceased one, both of them are fantastic. Tim Reynolds was there. If you don’t know Tim, he and Dave were partners for a long time before DMB started up. If you listen to nearly any DMB song that has both acoustic and electric guitar, odds are good he’s the electric guitar part.
I was very impressed by the new material. Although they still do very long jams, the new material is much more focused. They are more songs than jams, and this is a very good thing.
The only negative I have is one certain kind of song Dave writes. I swear his picks out five random notes in an odd rhythm and decides to make a riff out of it that he repeats over and over for 15 minutes. It doesn’t matter if the five notes actually fit together. He can make it work because he’s Dave Matthews damnit! Well, sometimes it does, sometimes it don’t. Combine that with his relentless experiments with stop start rhythms and you get a whole group of songs that kinda sound alike. And once you deduct all the other parts on top of the riff, that kinda stink.
I must close with the best quote about DMB:
Man, you know what I hate? Dave Matthews.,, It’s the whitest band ever, which is saying something considering 3 of the members are black, and Dave Matthews is literally an African American (born in South Africa). His music can be heard in Whole Foods stores, Live Earth concerts, or blasting from the speakers of open-topped Jeeps parked on curbs everywhere.