This post is from Out the Other's 2010 Bonnaroo Artist Previews, where I will be posting previews of all the musical acts playing the 2010 Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival. Please check out and subscribe to the full site to learn more about all of this year's performers.
I was a teenage DMB fan.
It's true, and I'm not afraid to admit it, because lord knows I've written things on Out the Other that should have lost me my indie cred card long, long ago. But yes, I was a Dave Matthews Band fan for quite some years, and while I never joined the fan club, or really adored them as much as a huge number of my friends, or even continued to pay attention to their albums circa Everyday and later, I loved them thoroughly enough to go to a handful of shows, own a shitload of their live albums, and memorize a number of lyrics that shockingly seem still to be implanted in my brain.
Take a walk with me down memory lane and see it through my eyes: 1994. Under the Table and Dreaming. Thirteen year-old me hearing "Ants Marching" on the radio, putting "Satellite" on mixtapes, swooning at the gentle guitar/sax combo of "Lover Lay Down," singing along to "Dancing Nancies" and thinking about how super intense the beginning of "Warehouse" was. At first I resisted, because Dave Matthews was just a little too popular with the girls in class that annoyed me, but I was like a puppy, like a newborn baby duckling. My ears were new to top 40 and I imprinted, just like that. I couldn't help it, it was science.
Not that I have anything to apologize for. I can't remember the first DMB show I went to see, but I remember that it was awesome - I was already developing my healthy level of respect for live shows, and my teenage hippie leanings already had me prepped for the jammy side of things. Dave Matthews Band captured that kind of epic arena sound years and years before Coldplay slapped their sticker on it, and the length of their shows and the breadth of their catalog kept things interesting, exciting and different at every show. I saw Dave Matthews Band five times or so live, and I still never heard my favorite song - despite the fact that it appeared in a decent number of sets.
Many people will forever associate DMB with "Ants Marching," with "Crash Into Me," with whatever singles were popping up all over the radio and MTV at the time, and with whatever they're working on now. But for me, DMB will always be one of the catalysts that got me interested in whole albums, in deep cuts, in live versions and live shows. It may be puppy love imprinting that made their music so palatable at the time, but damn if tunes like "The Stone" and "#41" don't still have a place in my heart. And well, if I stick around on Sunday night to see if I finally get to hear them play "Two Step," what of it?
"Two Step"
Dave Matthews Band will play on Sunday night from 9-11:30 p.m. on the What Stage.
