Dave Matthews – Birmingham – 13/05/06

I had no idea.

No idea just how enthusiastic and adoring the fans are. No idea of the insane distances they’d travel to see him. And no idea just how damn good Dave Matthews is live.

The evening began like many others. We drove to Birmingham, parked the car, and walked over to the venue. Despite the fact that we’d arrived an hour before the doors opened, the line of people queuing to get in stretched further than the eye could see. Despondent, we started to make our way to the end of the line and noticed prominently placed “Jump The Queue” signs. These suggested that if you enter Bar Academy – a diminutive little bar which sits alongside Birmingham Academy, our venue for the night – and buy a drink, they’ll stamp your pass and let you jump the queues. The queue for Bar Academy was approximately one tenth of the length of the main queue and there was a drink at the end of this one. No contest.

We soon entered the bar. The lone barmaid didn’t look terribly happy about the assembled hordes of Dave Matthews fans clamouring for a drink, but I squeezed myself into the crowd in an attempt to get her attention. The bar seemed to be entirely filled with Americans which took me by surprise; it’s not very often you get that when you go to see a band in Birmingham. Indeed, you don’t get that a lot in the UK. While I waited, I did a deal with a couple of local chaps who were at the side of me. “See,” one said to the other, “I told you we weren’t the only people in the UK liked Dave Matthews”. The deal was, whoever gets the attention of the bar staff first buys the other’s drinks and gets their tickets stamped. As luck would have it, I reached the bar first. 5 bottles of water later we had 5 stamped tickets and hurtled into the venue.

I thought we’d done quite well; the main queue hadn’t moved much at all whilst we were getting our tickets stamped, but there were already a significant number of people around the stage. I would later learn that said main queue had formed roughly four hours prior to the doors opening, so in hindsight, I don’t think we did too badly.

A young English guy called Richard Walters appeared on stage to provide support. He sat alone with his guitar, and plucked away at a few songs. I have to be totally honest and say I didn’t like him at all. He seemed to go down quite well with the crowd (apart from the guy who shouted “IT’S MISTER MATTHEWS TO YOU”) but I just found his tortured, post-Coldplay, minimalist approach slightly nauseating. Having said that, Coldplay do very well for themselves…

I first came across Dave Matthews on a 9/11 benefit concert on TV. Actually, that’s not strictly true: I first came across Dave on the Scream 2 soundtrack, but I digress. I can’t recall which network the concert appeared on, but one of our numerous (five) terrestrial channels repeated it in the UK. In between the sombre readings from a variety of A-list celebrities (amongst them Tom Cruise and Al Pacino, if I remember correctly) this guy appeared with a guitar and played what I thought was a surprisingly upbeat song, under the circumstances. I made a mental note of the lyrics – it wasn’t hard, they were clearly an homage to the Beatles – and the next day I “discovered” Dave Matthews. I bought Everyday and I still think it’s a great album. I was aware of his other work – the recent solo album Some Devil, Stand Up, Crash etc. – but for some bizarre reason I’ve never given them the same amount of attention.

Packed between various members of the crowd, in the surprisingly humid atmosphere of The Academy, it occurred to me that I really didn’t have a great deal of knowledge about Dave Matthews Band. As the realisation dawned, the man himself appeared to a roar of applause. And I do mean roar; the reception was without doubt the loudest response I’ve ever heard (in a venue of this size, at least) to a single guy appearing on stage.

He opened with Bartender, getting another roar of applause about half way through, and then marched straight into Gray Sreet. It was immediately obvious that, musically at least, we were in for a special evening. Matthews has a way of switching from hushed, sensitive vocals and gentle acoustic strumming to full-on driving acoustic guitar and growling delivery that’s entirely captivating. What wasn’t immediately obvious was just how funny Dave is on stage. After Gray Street, he told a surprisingly long winded anecdote about a tribe of bushmen in Africa, and he almost reminds me of Robin Williams; “I always talk a lot when I’m nervous,” he said, but he doesn’t just talk. He winks, laughs, swears, minces (while sipping away at a “delicious blend of herbal infusions” he very camply proclaimed that “I choose them by colour, this one’s mauve”), and insists on slipping into a (reasonable) Enlish accent. He holds the stage just as well while talking as he does singing, and few people I’ve ever seen can hold a stage like Dave Matthews. Most of the set was performed acoustically, but there were brief switches to the electric guitar (most notably for Smooth Rider and Some Devil). Dave did quite a large amount of talking throughout: “We’ve got a place called Birmingham back home, ‘cept we don’t call it ‘Beermingum’, we call it ‘Birming-HAM!’”. And just why does he act like such a fool on stage? “My analyst says I act like this because I’m not in touch with my inner pain….but why would you get in touch with your inner pain when being a fool is so much more fun!” The crowd certainly weren’t complaining – Dave’s clowning produced some genuine laughs from everyone present.

Just after Stay or Leave I was tapped on the shoulder by an American girl who insisted that, as she had flown all the way from Florida, she “had to see Dave Matthews”. I have something of an unofficial policy of, if asked, allowing anyone who’s shorter than me to stand in front of me. Why should I mind? They’re not going to block my view, and I get that warm and fuzzy feeling that only comes with a good deed. In this instance, once I’d said yes (I think it was the fact that she excitedly said “I have to see his feet” that convinced me), the girl called to her entourage and marched them into the small space in front of me. All four of them. They then stood in a circle, talking loudly about anything but the gig. One of them turned and caught the full force of my finely honed Paddington hard stare and offered me a hug. “Watch the gig” I growled. Clearly unhappy that his offer had been rebuffed, he offered me a kiss. Again, I suggested he watch the gig, but with an increased dose of menace. Clearly misinterpreting my lack of enthusiasm he slurred “it’s not gay or anything”, and I had to growl another even more menacing suggestion at him before he got the message. After a while, two of the group staggered off in search of the toilets. After a little more time, the remaining two had some sort of domestic disagreement and stormed off. I’ve tried, but I can’t understand the mentality of flying that sort of distance, only to stand and talk amongst yourselves and get so drunk you can’t last the whole gig.

I’m happy to say that other areas of the audience were far less rude. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard as many people sing along with entire songs before. I’m not just talking about the chorus, or a couple of particularly poignant lines, these guys knew entire songs. And more often than not they were pitch perfect – So Much To Say being a good example (even the “b-b-baby!”). Even more impressive was the audience providing the “honey honey” backing vocals on the intro to Everyday – I didn’t even know they existed! Throughout the course of the gig, Dave made several comments which alluded to bringing the rest of the band to the UK for a longer tour. Please do, Mr Matthews, you’ll find us to be more than accommodating.

Just after the American disturbance, I received a call from my wife to tell me that our son was ill and that she was taking him to the emergency doctor. This is the first time I’ve had this happen, and it filled me with such dread that I found it virtually impossible to concentrate on the gig for a few songs. Here I was, miles away, incapable of getting back within an hour if something terrible happened. Could I do anything if I returned home, anyway? Despite all the awful thoughts running through my head, I was helplessly pulled back into the gig for two songs, Everyday and Gravedigger – it’s a testament to the power of his performance that Matthews managed to penetrate the cloud of worry I was wallowing under for a while. I found Gravedigger particularly moving in the circumstances; it beautifully suited the stripped-down, acoustic solo treatment. Another incredibly moving track is So Damn Lucky, a chilling yet strangely catchy account of a car crash. A few songs later I was relieved to hear better news from my wife and managed to focus enough to enjoy the last few tracks and encore. And what a magnificent encore: After reappearing in a fresh t-shirt (Dave sweats “an almost disgusting amount” – his words) he performed a great new track which appears to be called Sister (about his sister, funnily enough), a funky crowd pleasing rendition of Too Much, and an awesomely powerful solo acoustic version of All Along the Watchtower. I’ve never heard the Dave Matthews Band perform this track, but if it’s half as impressive as Dave performing it alone I have no doubt it will leave a huge impact.

The most striking thing about the whole gig is that ever since, I’ve been humming several songs. I’ve gone in search of bootleg recordings, and listened to all those albums I’ve neglected. And, despite the brilliance of recent gigs, I’ve never really walked out of one and needed to see the performer again immediately. Before I saw him perform, I would describe myself as quite liking Dave Matthews. Now I’ve seen him, I feel a desperate but inconvenient urge to own everything he’s ever recorded, and follow him around the world. I suspect it might be better to just wait until he comes back to England though. Don’t let us down Dave!