Where Are You Going: Music and Memories with the Dave Matthews Band

As Paul and I get ready to see Dave Matthews Band (DMB) at Pine Knob in Michigan, I share writing from last summer that reflects on attending DMB concerts throughout the years, the impact the music still has on me today and the connection it has to the past.

Last summer, I saw the Dave Matthews Band (DMB) with my mom at the local Capital Region venerated music venue, Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC), a nine year hiatus for that particular venue.

While I remember exactly what my first show at SPAC was 20 years ago (!) - Avril Lavigne - my first Dave show there is a bit hazy (a play with words on the environment, not that I was partaking). I was fifteen, sitting on the lawn with my mom and a high school friend who was a bigger DMB fan than myself at the time.

My DMB exposure stemmed from a gift from my cousin, Daniel to my mom - a 2003 Dave Matthews's CD, his only solo record to date. From there she bought a few more albums, the one most on rotation being Dave & Tim's 1999 live concert CD at Luther College in Iowa.

The intro to that album, "One Sweet World", starts with the swelling of the crowd cheering, like an ocean wave slowly rising above the flat horizon. The sound brings me back to night time car rides, where we listened to DMB in rotation with Coldplay's Parachutes along with a mixed CD that had songs from Tracy Chapman to Nirvana to Blind Melon to the Cranberries.

My last DMB show at SPAC was at a crossroads in my life. It was July 3, 2015 - I had just graduated from college, donated a foot of hair, and was about to start my first full-time job. Within the next week, I'd make one last minute trip out to Buffalo, NY for good measure before moving to Maryland three days before my start date. (And Paul says I try to find in too many things sometimes!)

That July 2015 concert is the only of handful of times I have ever seen Dave "inside" or not on the lawn. At 21, I paid $13 for a craft beer and danced along to "Cornbread", a song I have found that I usually like more than other Dave fans I speak to.

Nearly ten years later at SPAC, Dave opened with "Minarets", a favorite of mine that I first heard on that live Luther College CD. That song likely introduced me to what a minaret was. I would think of that song when I visited Turkey in 2013 as I heard the call to prayer from various mosques throughout Turkey. The most memorable call to prayer was a 5 am wakeup call in the conservative Konya, where my roommate and I groggily arose from bed to stare sleepy eyed through the large glass doors onto the sunshine of the surrounding town.

From that 2024 concert, other song highlights included, "Where Are you Going", one of Paul's favorites. (I brought Paul to his first DMB concert at Pine Knob back in 2022.)

Seeing Dave last year with my mom, less than a month after the anniversary of Daniel's passing 20 years before, before felt like a full circle moment in a way. "Some Devil" has become my running album every May around his birthday. It's also a time to reflect on that terrible June day - an early morning phone call on a bright early summer morning on my and my sister's Irish dance feis (an Irish dance competition).

As the show ended, I thought back to my last Dave concert with my mom in 2022 with Dave & Tim as they headlined a music festival. The show was cut short due to storms, but they ended on "So Damn Lucky," a Some Devil track, as the rain poured down. Some are lucky, indeed.