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Sunday, Oh, to be Ichiban Shower Girl tonight. . .
Said clothing consisted of cotton shorts and a t-shirt, by the way. That should give you an idea of what a steambath the stadium was; I believe it hit somewhere around 100¡ F that day, and since Texas Stadium is technically an open-air arena (it has a roof, but there's also a big horking hole in the middle of it), there was a lot of heat concentrated in the place just from the sunlight. Add a horde of hot, sweating fans, and the temperature cranked up to "Satan's Waiting Room" levels. The stadium staff started firing some sort of mist into the air just before the band came on -- I can only assume it was water vapor in an attempt to cool down the stage and surrounding areas. Unfortunately, the fact that we were already at 90% humidity or so didn't help, but they get karma points for trying. In fact, of everyone sweating in the stadium, I felt sorriest for Dave; halfway through the concert he was utterly drenched, and the emergency medicine side of my brain was hoping there was a roadie waiting offstage with Gatorade and salt pills. Now, Boyd had the right idea -- he was wearing this black net shirt that just let the breeze right though. Then again, Boyd could out-sixpack Ricky Martin on a bad day, so he can get away with that look. But enough of the fashion critique -- what about the concert, I hear you cry. Well, this was the first DMB concert I've ever been to, and in the last few months there's been a lot of bitching from some dedicated Daveheads about Glen Ballard's producing touches on their latest album EVERYDAY -- the songs were too short and structured, Dave abandoned his usual acoustic for an electric baritone guitar, it was pop pap and they missed the wonderful jazzy improv of earlier albums, the complaints are endless. (BTW, I like EVERYDAY -- yes, it's different from the earlier stuff, but artists are supposed to experiment, to create something new and different, otherwise all they're creating is repetitive hackwork. And isn't it interesting that they all bitched when Dylan went electric, and he certainly hasn't faded into the wallpaper. But I digress.) So as you can guess, I've heard a certain amount of speculation that any concert which included selections of EVERYDAY was going to suck. To use the quaint patois of my native South Side: fuck that shit, man. The concert would have blown the roof off the place if it actually had one. The playlist covered a fab selection from all the albums, including some songs I didn't recognize (I assume they either came from the very first album, which I don't have, or from the collection of songs the band canned in favor of the EVERYDAY tracks), and the opening act (not Macy Gray -- she's a West African singer whose name I didn't catch) joined Dave in a lovely duet on "Satellite." But my favorite DMB song of all time is "#41" from CRASH, and what they did with it was the best treat of all. They played it in this lovely, slow lyrical beat, the entire crowd singing along on ""I wanted to stay/I wanted to play/I wanted to love you" -- And then they segued into "Everyday" as a coda, using the music from "#41." Gorgeous. In fact, the only downside about the whole concert was that I couldn't get rid of the other ticket -- I actually had a scalper turn it down -- so I had to see the concert on my own. I don't regret it at all, mind you -- getting a chance to see Dave Matthews dance is worth the price of admission. But it is a lot more fun to go to concerts with other people. That way, you can laugh, joke, point out the guy with the builder's crack, and get into the communal mood of the thing. It was also somewhat odd to be one of the fifteen or so people above the age of 30 (this includes the band, BTW) who attended the concert -- everyone else there seemed to be in their 20's or younger. Lots of college students yodeling, "DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAVE!" in between talking on cell phones to their friends across the stadium, or producing some rather pungent clouds of pot smoke that were drifting along the stadium seating like a friendly contact high. In fact, I cracked up when I noticed this nicely-dressed 30something suburban couple sitting in front of me; they kept sniffing the air and turning to each other with these baffled looks on their faces ("Gosh, Melissa, that doesn't smell anything like tobacco, does it? Um. . .are you hungry?"). But hey, screw it, it's a concert. Next time, I'll just remember to wear a tank top and bring hearing protection -- I am turning 35 in a couple of days, after all. . .
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