Everyday
Dream Girl --> Don't Drink the Water
Drive In Drive Out
#34
Say Goodbye
Time of the Season
Hunger For the Great Light
You Might Die Trying
Lie In Our Graves
Steady As We Go
Stand Up
Crush
American Baby
What You Are
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Old Dirt Hill
Rapunzel
As thousands of cars started to spill into two, maybe three thin travel lanes exiting the Tweeter Center, J, M and I spread out a blanket and settled in for the most relaxation the circumstances would allow. I began to play with my camera, testing how the headlights bathing us in light (as they would for the next half hour or so) registered in picture form with different exposure times. M flipped through Cosmo and shared with me what's considered hot and not right now (it appears that dirty texts are the new big thing. My cell phone seems shamefully chaste. Should I remedy that?). J asked us for jokes and, upon our somewhat blank stares, went off to find some from others.
She returned with a pair of guys from a few cars over, and we settled into conversation, shared fruit (ours) and beer (theirs). M waited impressively long before asking the question that had been nagging her since their arrival.
"Are you from that car playing Dave right now?"
B smiled, clearly proud. "Yes."
She sat up, set down the magazine for a moment and leaned forward. "I've always wanted to know this. You just saw the band perform. So why do you immediately start playing the same exact music?"
He seemed surprised. I snickered and wished that snapping a picture of his puzzlement wouldn't seem rude. "Because I love it."
"But you just heard it. Doesn't that tarnish what you're hearing, at least a little?"
"No. I'm reminiscing."
"Reminiscing over something you just experienced twenty minutes ago?"
"Hey. I have short-term memory."
End scene. Exchange of the night.
We sat around for maybe an hour and a half before B realized that his Dave-blaring had completely drained his battery. It was right around the same time a police officer approached and rudely demanded that we leave and pour out the beer that B had left on the ground near us. "Drinking alcohol in public is an arrestable offense," he said, puffing his chest in self-importance. So much for trying to be helpful and cutting down on the traffic. We bit our tongues and climbed into the car.
My ears were ringing a bit as we played Ray LaMontagne and sped up 95. All things considered, getting out of the venue was much more pleasant an experience than I'd expected. Fitting, really, as it capped the best DMB show I've attended, taken in from the best DMB seats I've had (admittedly, the latter is rather relative, as I trilled upon actually being able to see Dave and company this time - instead of just watching the screens and light spectacular). The show experience even started with a rainbow. Good signs all around.
The set wasn't "Stand Up" heavy, so the fact that I hadn't paid any attention to the new album did little to hinder my enjoyment. Actually, the songs off the album I did hear were quite impressive live - so maybe I won't cringe as much listening to studio renditions. One can hope, anyway. But the older material was delivered with the quintessential power the band brings to live performance - and I'd be surprised to hear that the show wasn't one of the best of the tour thus far. The energy felt as if it couldn't get much more intense as Boyd ripped into a jaw-dropping extended solo during (my favorite DMB summer song - hurrah!) "Lie In Our Graves."
As the video cameras projecting the live feed zoomed in on Boyd's ecstatic grin during the solo, I was waiting to see what more the man could possibly do with the melody; I was continuously amazed when he discovered some new way to carry the music on. This wasn't your pointless (*cough*Mayer live "Neon" solo*cough*) musical masturbation jam. It was instead one that picked the audience up and carried it right along with him during every pull on the bow. By the time Dave stepped back to the mic for the V-grin-inducing "I can't believe that we would lie in our graves..." conclusion, I was tired FOR Boyd.
The jam was the point during the show at which "This is an amazing Dave show" turned into "Yeah, this is the best one I've gone to. Yep."
And, embarrassing as it may be to admit, I found myself creeping forward as the spotlight turned onto Stefan a few songs later. He was playing around a bit, waiting to kick off the next song, and I just hoped that he would lead into the familiar "dum da da-dum dum dum" that kicked off my favorite DMB song...
...and Michelle laughed at me as I grabbed her arm, squealed and started dancing all the more. And there's something about hearing a band perform that first song you loved, years after you stared at a black and white video on television, realizing that your opinion of a band you swore you'd never like would have started to change by the time the video ended...
Hypothetically speaking, of course.
Michelle clocked it at 12 minutes - almost 13. I watched the blues and purples and greens on stage, listened to the Boyd's jam in the middle and belted out the lines at the top of my lungs, not concerned about how I looked because everyone else was doing the same exact thing and I wouldn't have been able to not sing along anyway.
It's crazy I'm thinking
Just as long as you're around
And here I'll be dancing on the ground
Am I right side up or upside down
To each other we'll be facing...
I prefer the small shows. I'll take an intimate club over a huge Coporate-Mad-Libs Center. But standing beneath the open sky with the thousands of other people who had gathered for one band and were now dueling with the musicians to see whose voices soared the highest?
It somehow felt just right.
(Photos from the rest of the weekend and more from the Glen experience now on the Flickr. Check it.)
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