Review: DAVE MATTHEWS BAND at Nationwide Arena

Usually being inducted into a hall of fame means a performer has surpassed his or her own career. For example, players must be retired for at least five seasons to be considered for Major League Baseball’s National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, N.Y., or the National Football League’s Professional Football Hall of Fame in Canton.

No such criteria exists for Cleveland’s Rock And Roll Hall of Fame, however. And for the 20,000-plus attendees of the Dave Matthews Band’s Nov. 16 performance at Nationwide Arena in downtown Columbus, that is good news indeed. After being inducted to the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame on Oct. 19, Matthews, 57, and his six-person ensemble showed no signs of slowing down (or speeding up) as they meandered through a 21-song, two-and-a-half hour set.

Jack (not his real name) traveled from Fort Wayne, Ind. as part of a floating contingent who follow Matthews from venue to venue. He would be lost without a DMB tour to look forward to.

“Every show is different,” Jack said as he watched his compatriots fill the arena. “The songs he’ll do tonight are different from last night and that was different from the previous show.

“They are like the Grateful Dead … only without the drugs.”

The fog and the smell that filtered through the Nationwide Arena might be evidence against Jack’s assertion. However, his observation about a varied set list was spot on.

According to the fan supported Setlist.com, every song was different from the DMB’s show the previous night in Pittsburgh. Like the Dead or Bruce Springsteen, Dave Matthews has a large enough catalog of material to change things up (completely) night after night.

That proved to be both his greatest asset and his biggest liability on Nov. 16. Although he’s never had a number one hit (neither did the Grateful Dead by the way), Matthews has a handful of songs those outside of the fanatical fan base know by heart: “Crash Into Me,” “Every Day,” “Don’t Drink The Water,” “What Would You Say?” “Grey Street,” and “Crush,” to name a few.

Yet Matthews doesn’t appear to be keen on playing a greatest hits package in concert. The singer opened the Columbus show with “Ants Marching,” bringing the crowd to its feet. He then kept them standing for the remainder of the show.

However, “Don’t Drink The Water” might have been the only other DMB song those outside of the circle might have known.

In Pittsburgh, it was the same thing, with the DMB offering “The Space Between” and no other signature pieces.

While it was a journey into the unfamiliar, it wasn’t an unpleasant one. Matthews presented concert newbies with an eccentric mix of his material. And all of it was good. In particular, “Grace Is Gone,” a song of loss and remembering to forget, is heart-achingly well-crafted and beautiful.

The pieces in the band – Tim Reynolds (guitarist), Buddy Strong (keyboards), Carter Beaufort (drums), Stefan Lessard (bass), Jeff Coffin (saxophone and flute) and Rashawn Ross (trumpet) – delivered each song with ease and precision.

Matthews combined his own work with an interesting mix of covers – Daniel Lanois’ “The Maker,” Led Zeppelin’s “Fool in the Rain,” and The Commodores’ “Brick House” with trumpeter Rashawn Ross handling the lead vocals on the latter. After Matthews finished up his solo tune, “So Damn Lucky,” the audience goaded Strong into offering up Sly and the Family Stone’s “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin).”

Matthews closed out the encore with an acoustic version of “All Along The Watchtower” and the band then closed out the song with a snippet of Zeppelin’s “Stairway To Heaven” thrown in for good measure.

As it is with the Dead, watching the interactions among the audience was almost as interesting as watching the show. One onlooker wearing a Buffalo Bills jersey said he had traveled nearly five hours to Columbus for the show, but “had to be at work at 8 a.m. tomorrow.”

Jack, a veteran of over 40 DMB shows, called himself “a song chaser,” someone traveling from show to show trying to find an obscure Matthews tune he hadn’t seen before. Jack said the Columbus show was the first time he heard DMB do  “Stolen Away from 55th and Third.”

On one tour, he saw the Dave Matthews Band 17 times. While others save up for trips to Europe or Disney World, some DMB fans save up money between tours to spend as much time on the road with the band as possible.

The road warriors make up their own little island. The lyrics to the band’s “Typical Situation,” could be a national anthem for the group: Everybody's happy/Everybody's free/We'll keep the big door open/ And everyone'll come around.

“Each stop, each show is different,” he said. “There are different shows, different posters, and different shirts. Some fans share hotel rooms or get together for meals before the shows. It’s a lot of fun. It’s a great community of people.”

Photo Credit: Sanjay Suchak

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