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Following the record-breaking crowds at the Ottawa Bluesfest for the Foo Fighters concert the previous evening, on July 11th, 2018 my crowd-averse houseguests decided they wanted to avoid going onsite until the very last minute. I tried to explain that the crowds would be basically incomparable between the two nights, but with little of interest (to them) between the 6pm slot featuring local phenom Lucas Haneman and the featured act at 8:30 I didn’t try too hard. So the four of us skipped out on Lucas’ set (unfortunately) and made it to the concert pitch just as The Dave Matthews Band was starting up.
Getting through the gates was just a matter of marching through the gatemaze; bag or no bag, everyone was just walking in with no lineups. M’lady didn’t have a ticket; she zigged to look for a cheap one outside while my nephew Chris, his wife Amy, and myself zagged into the venue, where we three immediately parted company.
I found friends and cringed through the first song as Mr. Matthews screamed a very amateur-sounding scream into his microphone, clutching his notoriously tuned-down acoustic guitar. I turned to my nearest friend and said, “These guys are terrible!”
“What?!?” he asked, cupping his hand to his ear with a big smile on his face.
Okay dude (I said to myself), you just got here, no need to rain on anyone’s parade. Yet.
“These guys are great!” I yelled back, lying through a smile of my own.
Then I turned to my crew and told them I couldn’t stay there with them, because once m’lady secured a ticket outside (and I was confident she would, concert professional that she is) we had arranged to meet up in a completely different area. I went to said area, found nobody I knew including my nephew nor his wife and most of all m’lady, so I stood there scanning the crowd while trying quite hard to ignore the music. After about ten minutes I got so bored I decided to just walk around aimlessly.
And whattya know, I ran right into m’lady, who had scored a ticket for just $10, and we went to meet our crew. High fives and beer cheerses all ‘round and you know what? That Dave Matthews guy started turning things around. Their excellent (if about 3 BPM too fast) cover of Peter Gabriel’s Sledgehammer was the first thing that seriously caught my attention. Matthews was clearly giving his all and seemed genuinely happy to be there, it turns out that his guitarist Tim Reynolds is quite a monster himself, and it was great to hear Jeff Coffin (formerly of the Flecktones) playing with them. It was most fun watching the trumpet player who – great as he was – had a glacial facial expression that made him look as bored as Mt. Rushmore, even when he was raging through yet another killer solo.
As the set started wrapping up I had completely come around; I had my hands up in the air and everything. And then the set didn’t wrap up at all! I must have thought the last eight songs would be the final number of the night; they just kept going and going. When the band finally did close things out with a double-shot encore I had to admit that The Dave Matthews Band had put in a set that was as good if not better than the Fooeys from the night before.
And just so you know that I know, I do indeed realize that my improved attitude towards the show directly coincided with me finding m’lady, a discovery that allowed me to set myself mentally at ease. It took a long time for me to figure it out but there is little doubt that there’s a direct correlation between how good I happen to be feeling and how good a band is sounding, and it’s no chicken-or-the-egg thing either. And that rule rings true across the board, musical or otherwise.
Which basically means that it’s good to feel good.
Todd Man Out 