I heart DMB
22 March 2005, 21:21
Dave Matthews. Sigh. Undoubtedly one of the most amazing male singers today. And undoubtedly one of the most antipodean-avoidant singers, having made exactly zero trips to Australia before last Sunday.
Husband had waited 8 years to see them live. I’d waited around 5, being a fairly late-bloomer in the Dave Matthews field of dreams. Tickets to last night’s gig sold out in roughly half-an-hour the day they went on sale. We may have been located in the arse-hole of the Palais, but the vista from said arse-hole was v. fine (although, from that distance, the keyboardist looked disturbingly like the lovechild of David Hasselhof & Kamahl and the drummer like Ice T).
The main problem with the Palais is that you can’t really have a decent boogie – it’s all seating, and they sure are nazi about you getting up into the aisles and dancing. “It’s a fire hazard” they whined to us (a few times, as Husband and I have a tendency toward ADD). Didn’t stop us from trying, but we did get into trouble a few times.
It was a great concert, but there were a few extenuating circumstances that stops me from quite raving about it…..
Firstly, I was knackered and had foul headache (which actually got heaps better as the concert wore on – oh the soothing elixir that is DMB). Secondly, the song mix was strange – I have a real soft spot for one of their CDs and they only played one song from it. In fact, I didn’t even know half the songs. I swear I have listened to all their CDs and DM’s solo CD, but I couldn’t really get into the unknown songs.
The highlight of the 2 and a half-hour set was undoubtedly “Cry Freedom” – an absolutely beautiful ballad. They really fucking know their music – there was jamming, sax solos, fiddle solos, an impromptu scat (have been summarily informed that it wasn’t a beatbox rap – ah the ignorance of the vocabularily-challenged!) and the melancholy, but gutsy crooning of DM himself.
The other highlight of the concert was the audience. About half an hour before DMB came on stage, the crowd went certifiably nuts with absolutely no respect for how old that theatre was. I had no clue DMB were so massive here. You never see them on the charts or on Video Hits or anything so it was pretty ^&*(ing awesome to be surrounded by thousands of people with good musical taste (as deemed by moi).
Today I feel chotto crap. And blue. I get the blues every 6 months or so – the black funk I used to call it. Today’s is a little purple, with pink on the inside. At least it’s colourful…
Permanent Link - Fyi, Cry Freedom wasnt from Some Devil and Dave scats, not beatbox rap.
I was at the Monday night’s gig and it f***ing rocks.
— DMBfan@melbourne Mar 25, 09:26 PM # - Ah yes, scatting, quite right quite right. Couldn’t think of the word, and was, in fact, too lazy to bother thinking of the word. McG told me (too late!) that Cry Freedom wasn’t from Some Devil – to be honest, DMB’s songs all melt into one long honeyed frenzy. Pah, and I call myself a fan!
— Kinki Mar 26, 10:03 PM # - Yes, you definitely have old 30-something rockers syndrome by the sounds of it Kim (I’m not far behind you there being also in the 30something club myself now) having just returned from Dave Matthew’s concert feeling blue, the black funk is actually Black Sabbath, the purple is Deep Purple and the pink of course is Pink Floyd! It’s all natural and harmless so don’t worry about it.
— nick Mar 27, 02:31 AM #
