It’s a brave man who schedules a gig on the night of the Champions League final, but since Dave Matthews is something of a multi-platinum phenomenon across the big Atlantic pond, ‘soccer’ matches probably don’t enter his mind. To be fair, there were far fewer empty seats than I had anticipated. I suppose he’s not trying to attract the same crowd.
Their apparent loyalty notwithstanding, grabbing their attention seemed beyond him. The gig had no real momentum to speak of. The band built songs from Dave’s acoustic rhythm, adding in drum, bass and horns along the way, until the whole thing exploded into a sing-along, crowd-pleasing crescendo. But there were infuriatingly large gaps between songs while instruments were changed and brows were wiped. This happened after every song, ensuring that the gig never really felt like it would ever get going.
The die-hards up the front were hanging on his every strum, but the constant hum of conversation from those further back suggested he’d failed to win over agnostics. Dave and band are obviously guys who love playing together and have been doing so quite successfully for many years now, but I really didn’t see anything that justifies their immense popularity Stateside. An agnostic, at the end I felt that I really should have stayed home and watched the match.