Dave Matthews Rocks The Field

When Bill, Rob, and I walked through the stadium arches, redemption was on our minds. A rain soaked football field was half vacant from the monsoon coming that soaked everyone there. Two months earlier we had walked away from the Dave Matthews Band’s headlining performance at the New Orleans Jazz Fest disappointed. Had it not been for guest appearances by Paul Simon and Lenny Kravitz, the show would have been even more forgettable.

At Folsom Field, on the Colorado University campus, the first concert in almost nine years was being held. We had arrived in time for the second MTV sponsored opener. Yet it was the relentless downpour from Mother Nature that was souring our spirits more that Wyclef Jean’s bag of Bob Marley covers. When the headliners later burst onto the stage and ripped into a quality Come and Dance With Me, I could sense that New Orleans was a fluke. The next song was new to me but definitely piqued my interest. It hit a more cerebral level before ending in a jam of jazzy proportions. During the tail end of the song, cameras tracking the band fluttered around to each player. The tone of this song, and the others like it, was noticeably darker than most of the band’s usual repertoire. I would later read, in the review from the Boulder paper the next day, that these songs were actually tracks recorded on an aborted project the band undertook about a year ago. According to the Daily Camera and Rolling Stone magazine, the project’s producer discarded these songs. Apparently Mr. Lillywhite did not see the commercial potential in them and decided the band should scrap the album altogether. Everyday would take over the vacant spot left by the aborted Lillywhite Project. However, Dave began to unleash them heavily during the summer tour. As for Dave’s performance at Folsom Field, it was nothing short of fabulous. I can say without doubt that it was probably the most complete Dave Matthews show that I have ever seen. The balanced mix of old songs and ones from the current album impressed me. Dave could go from dancing with Boyd Tinsley during Tripping Billies, to strapping in his electric guitar and ripping the notes to I Did It. For more than two and a half hoursthe band played uninterrupted. Near the end Dave introduced his “good friend,” bassist Stefan Lessart. The intro led to an extended baseline that eventually signaled the beginning of All Along The Watchtower. Unlike the more familiar Hendrix version, this song slowly built to a powerful climax that the packed stadium of forty thousand people erupted to. Despite the warning from the University about maintaining order, Dave decided to stay on an extra twenty minutes. With the way he played and fed off of the energy of the crowd, I got the sense that he did not mind paying the fine.

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