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Live review: Dave Matthews Band at Austin City Limits studio
Dave Matthews plays the guitar during the concert of his Dave Matthews Band July 11 at the Optimus Alive music festival in Lisbon, Portugal. (AP Photo/Armando Franca)
On the day the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame designated the Austin City Limits studio as a historical site, the venerable program hosted one of the most popular acts of the last 15 years, likely expecting the Dave Matthews Band to put a musical exclamation point on the big day.
While punctuated at times with exceptional playing, the show seemed to act more as an ellipsis … teasing fans with tastes of their rollicking past throughout a set of relatively homogeneous new songs.
The Dave Matthews Band made a national name for itself in the mid-’90s with crisp, melodic songs that featured evocative songwriting, jazz instrumentation and extended jamming. The group from Virginia straddled musical worlds, attracting eclectic fans of improvisational groups such as the Grateful Dead and Phish while remaining commercially palatable enough to inspire thousands of high school kids and college co-eds to attend the band’s shows in droves.
In the early years, Matthews served as a proxy for his fans — finding his way in the world, celebrating life’s endless possibilities, expressing individuality and swimming in the beauty and ache of the world — offering up his discoveries for the fans to share in as their own.
In the years since the early successes of “Remember Two Things” and “Under the Table,” as their collective star rose, however, it seems Matthews’ musical ambitions have lagged.
While the band certainly still hits the right notes and is as tight as ever, the content and delivery feel more processed. The poetry seems to have waned from the live lyrics, giving way to simplistic observations and self-seriousness, and the man who once gave voice to the collective concerns of a fanbase staring adulthood in the face became adult contemporary pabulum with a danceable beat. Such are the “perils” of adulthood and success. Most musicians should be so fortunate.
The ACL Festival co-headliner-to-be opened its set Monday night by stuffing the tamely ironic “Funny the Way It Is,” a song that feels perfectly suited for a twilight festival set, into the crammed studio, as the crowd, which did not have the luxury of seats, struggled with the notion of actually dancing.
Call him the musical Wooderson of “Dazed and Confused” — he gets older and the girls stay the same age — but Matthews still knows how to make the ladies swoon, as evidenced by their cat-call responses to his lines “But I love the way you love me, baby” in “Spaceman.” Maybe the girls grow older, too, they just continue to fall for the same lines. Lucky guy.
“Spaceman,” with its guitar-fueled devil-may-care Lothario vibe offered compelling evidence that Matthews has probably done more to fuel would-be “American Idols” a la Kris Allen and boost acoustic guitar sales than any musician of the past 15 years. Not to mention the amount of money it has earned him and his bandmates.
The “love-song of sorts,” as Matthew described it, “Squirm,” showcased Matthews’ immediately recognizable vocal style, as he descended from growl to whisper, shoving lyrics into a tight space before exploding like a bearded jack-in-the-box to the extreme delight of the hollering fans.
His boyish, rapscallion charm never lurking too far beneath the surface, Matthews improvised a bit about the joys of playing outside, under the stars with the city’s skyline in the back, an inside joke played at the expense of those at home who may be under the delusion ‘ACL’ is taped al fresco.
Continuing with the set stuffed with a majority of tunes from the recently released “Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King,” Jeff Coffin’s delicate soprano sax sounds punctuated the mystical aspects of “Lying in the Hands of God,” a song that had the plastic feel of commodified spirituality. The song did offer the chance for the band’s first full-on jam, highlighting the freakish drumming of Carter Beauford, whom I am not ready to declare has only four limbs. As they have throughout their history, the band does an excellent job of giving each of the players space to shine, communicating through subtle nods and inflections.
Here it should be noted that one of the great products of DMB’s popularity is how the band has made better listeners out of many of its fans. I would argue that many devotees over the years first came to appreciate the art of the solo, in particular that of horns, strings and percussion, by way of listening to DMB. In fact, I imagine the band was my rickety on-ramp to John Coltrane and Miles Davis in 1993.
With “Why I Am,” Matthews gave a nod to deceased sax man Leroi Moore, when introducing the song he said began initially as a chaotic cacophony before developing into a wonderful vehicle this night for the shredding of guitar virtuoso Tim Reynolds.
Halfway through the set that would feature almost all of the group’s new material, the band finally gave some old diehards what they had come to see, as they launched into “Jimi Thing,” a song from the band’s break-out “Under the Table and Dreaming,” that was spiced by Coffin’s sax and trumpet player Rashawn Ross trading lines. The raucous throwback allowed the band to fully stretch out, where they are at their best, and for the first time of the evening give the studio the feel of a small club, with older and younger fans alike bobbing and swaying.
It would be one of the few times when everyone in the room seemed equally invested in the band that they had come to love at different times throughout the winding career of arguably the world’s longest-running college party band.
Matthews seemed intent on giving a platform to his newer tunes on this night, but he is not unaware or unappreciative of the fans of his older work. While he seemed reluctant to go back to his formative musical years, as a departure from the night’s intended set list (which I acquired), the band’s final encore of the 16-song set was “Two Step,” off the 1994 live EP “Recently.” Not coincidentally, it was also the song requested on a handmade sign held by a girl in the front row.
If only the whole night had contained the energy and passion of the song which ended it. Alas … musicians change … often becoming something less than what we once thought and hoped they were.
Dave Matthews Band at Austin City Limits studio, 08.10.09 (setlist)
“Funny the Way it Is”
“Spaceman”
“Squirm”
“Lying in the Hands of God”
“Alligator Pie”
“Gravedigger”
“Why I Am”
“Seven”
“Jimi Thing”
“Shake Me Like a Monkey”
“Sister”
“You and Me”
“Time Bomb”
“Ants Marching”
E: “Whiskey, Rye Whiskey”
E: “Two Step”
Fans cheer for the Dave Matthews Band during a show Monday night at the “Austin City Limits” studio (Kelly West AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
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By Duderino
August 12, 2009 8:29 AM | Link to this
It always amazes me how much people bash this band every chance they get. I was at the simulcast and was very impressed with the new material. This band has gone through a lot and it was a beautiful thing to witness them on the historic ACL stage doing what they love and enjoying every second.
By KLINK DURF
August 12, 2009 3:36 PM | Link to this
i think it’s the whole preppy “college rock” moniker they kind of adopted back in the 90s. plus their newer material has been bland and boring. i haven’t personally heard the new NEW stuff yet. i was a big fan of Under The Table… however. don’t know why some bands are perceived as cool (Phish) and some not (DMB)