DMB: Little Rock, September 29, 2009

[hillarygayle]

On September 29, 2009, the marvelous asqmh and I attended a fabulous Dave Matthws Band concert in North Little Rock, Arkansas, at Dickey-Stephens Stadium. HOW SO FUN?!

First of all: I ditched a computer training course at the hospital for this. Come on. How could I not?

We left at like 1:30 or 2-ish and drove to Little Rock. Q kept trying to take a nap but the fact that we cannot HELP but talk about fascinating & important subjects (like makeup, politics, cupcakes, religion, attractive men, fashion, and world peace) hindered the nap greatly. When we arrived in Little Rock we found the stadium right away. I yelled out the window to ask the waiting fans what time the doors opened, and they yelled back that it would be 5pm. We drove across the bridge to find a bathroom & kill a bit of time at the River Market, which I maintain is one of the coolest places in any large city. Seriously, anyone who comes to visit me from now on is getting a River Market visit. I love it so. We bought souvenirs there; beaded necklaces & earrings from a nice lady named Becky and sunglasses from a little tourist trap called Shop the Rock. Mostly so Q's retinas would not become charbroiled.

At about 4:45 we got back in the car and crossed the bridge again...very very slowly this time. Traffic was getting very bad in anticipation of the concert. We still got a pretty choice parking spot. I'm glad we chose to come down early & get in as the doors opened.



So we stood in line with some nice people who were passing out beers. If we'd liked beer we would've been grateful but as it was we were just impressed by their generosity. We debated whether we thought certain people were wearing any underpants (there was a girl in front of us wearing a shirt she mistook for a dress; we're pretty sure if a stiff wind came up she'd have been arrested for indecent exposure), which of course led to a discussion of Dave's "Underpants Festival". In an interview in Germany he was asked what kind of festival he'd be, and he said he wanted to be an Underpants Festival where people of all shapes, sizes, & colors had a party in their underpants. We wished we'd brought a sign that said "We'd come to your Underpants Festival" or something like that.

And then I got camera-checked. I've already written that story up; they made me take it back to the car where I disassembled it and promptly brought it back, hidden in various places in my purse. The security lady KNEW it was there, but she didn't press the issue. BLESS YOUR HEART, little security lady!


Of course the light rig & stage were as impressive as they always are. I took this one lying on my back before it got really crowded.


Q & I sat on the ground with a couple of really cool girls (who we later friended on Facebook). I'm pretty sure this was the point at which I sat in gum. Not cool, man.



There was some guy dressed ENTIRELY in green spandex. He even had gloves; unless that was neon green body paint. He was also wearing a full-head alien mask. We have NO idea what that was all about, but it was amusing. I took this photo, trying to get a good shot of him. You can see him up there in the very front row.

Dave always comes out and introduces the opening band. Here he is introducing the Gregg Allman band.






Gregg Allman's sax & guitar players are remarkably young looking. They were also quite easy on he eyes. The guitar player looks a bit academic, and the sax player looks adorably geeky. Adorkable, you might say. If the bass player had just a few more pounds on him I would've caught him, put him in a box, and presented him to <lj user="asqmh">. She likes 'em tall, but not necessarily skinny, and this dude looked like his ribs might've been just a hair too sharp. :D

The Gregg Allman band finished and the stadium lights came on so that the roadies could set up for Dave Matthews Band!

Here are a few thousand of our closest friends & fellow DMB fans.


These guys run the spotlights. They lower this boom, they strap themselves in, and they're hoisted to the top of the stage to spot the performers. I really don't envy the one who has to keep a spot on Dave when he's got the spirit...I MEAN, when he's dancing with the wild glee of a troop of 5 year olds.



Carter's "drum kit" might be more accurately described as the "percussion command center". When they took away the drum kit for the Allman band, this was sitting there, raised behind it. You didn't notice it before because there were people in front of it, but when the other band's stuff was cleared, this hulking beast was in the background. Carter is just WOW.


We referred to this woman as "Stage Mom". She sat on stage left the whole night; her shirt stated "security". This led to conversations between me, Q, & the Two Awesome Girls about this woman totally going all ninja & drop kicking someone who tried to climb onto the stage.


I like this shot; it's the stage & light rigs, fog machines going and backlit by the stadium lights.


After a while of setup (given the light show that accompanies DMB, a great deal of stage setup must happen before they go on), the band themselves took the stage! This was the first DMB show I've been to where they just took the stage in front of everyone, without a screen or a curtain pull/drop or something. They just kind of walked out and we all lost it, of course. Without any preamble at all, the band turned around, faced us, and nonchalantly hit the first loud, dramatic, minor note of Don't Drink the Water as Fenton, the stage manager & Ultimate Stage Lighting Hero did this:


I was looking down at my camera, fiddling with something. It was so sudden & with so little warning that I gasped & literally jumped. I have said it before but I will point out again: Fenton Williams, the lighting director, does not use electronic queues. He triggers everything by hand. The band improvs too much; they might play a 6 minute song for 20 minutes if they think they have a good groove going (I wish I could've witnessed the 32-minute #41 with the Flecktones that's on Best of What's ARound Volume 1), so he isn't able to set the lights to just run with a particular song. The band has also been known to stray from the setlist, so Fenton just "plays" the lights as the band plays the music. This never ceases to impress me; I know just enough about stage lighting to know how huge and intricate a job this would be.

Please note all the cameras & cameraphones that did NOT get checked & taken back out to cars. Yeah.



Jeff Coffin makes me shiver. Rashawn Ross makes me smile. Therefore I have loads of photos of stage left.


L to R: Boyd Tinsley, TIm Reynolds (from the Planet Guitar), Dave Matthews, and Carter Beauford at the command center.


This was a particularly neat shot. I like the way all the fog is lit up.


The whole crew. Play it, boys.


Whole crew again.





This is one of many Stefan Lessard photos that left me cursing the arm of the man in front of me.


I just love the way Stefan STANDS. He doesn't run around the stage a lot like Dave, but instead just stands there looking cool, collected & in charge. There's a reason fans call him Fonz.




Stage left again.





Gregg Allman guested on Melissa. Good stuff.









Sometimes Dave has to dance. I think he explodes if he doesn't.

Our setlist:
Don't Drink the Water [Second time I've seen this opener live!]
Funny the Way It Is [I missed this at Dallas so I was pretty excited to hear it here.]
Seven [I do not think the 15 year old boys next to us realized what this song was about. e_e]
So Damn Lucky
Shake Me Like A Monkey [Q & I talked about possible setlist picks on the way to LR. This was on my list of songs I badly wanted to hear.]
Melissa
Alligator Pie [SO FUN LIVE.]
You Might Die Trying [If the 15 year olds didn't grok Seven, the frat-boy Popped Collar Crew didn't grok this one. It's one of my favorites, though. "If you give, you begin to live..."]
Spaceman [This was also on our list of songs; Q really wanted to hear it.]
Jimi Thing (w/ Sexy M.F. outro) [This was the best Jimi Thing I have ever heard, and if there isn't a tape of this show, it's the #1 reason I will CRY. Jeff played 2 saxes at once for a LONG time in this song. At the end, with the Sexy M.F. outro, the band members were ALL singing along with Dave. I could have died of awesome. This is also the song wherein I realized fully that I indeed had a contact high. I found myself staring, fascinated, at the blue outlines of the other people in the crowd, backlit by the stage lights. There was a great deal of pot being smoked at this concert, unlike other DMB concerts I've attended. It's NEVER been this bad. It stunk & it gave us headaches.]
Burning Down the House [I thought I was going to flip out when I heard them start this. Q thought so too because she looked at me and grinned the hugest grin and said "We might as well just have emailed them our setlist!"]
Dancing Nancies [Could I have been lost somewhere in Little Rock? DON'T WORRY DAVE. WE'LL FIND YOU!]
Why I Am [The crowd sang loudest of all with this song.]
Squirm [As if I wasn't already filled to the gills with excitement, they played my favorite song off Big Whiskey. Reason #2 I will cry if there's no pull.]
You & Me [And then they played the song we're gonna play at Q's wedding.]
Grey Street [Followed by the song that gets me through when I despair of ever getting off this farm & out of this tiny town. Q took a pic of Dave during this song and a pic of me (unbeknownst to me) listening. She says it's Dave singing to me. :) I love my BFF.]
Pantala Naga Pampa
Rapunzel [BEST. SEXY. SONG. EVER.]
[Encore Break]
Baby Blue [This song never fails to make me cry, and it did make me cry right in that giant crowd in the middle of the concert. It's just so HEARTBREAKING.]
Stefan Solo (Stairway to Heaven!) [This was so awesome. I wished Bryan had been there right then; he loves Stairway.]
All Along the Watchtower (with Stairway to Heaven Interpolation) [They didn't just interpolate the music of Stairway the way they did in Dallas. In the middle of the song, the horns began the tune, then Tim took it up, and then finally the entire band was actually playing Stairway. Dave sang the entire bridge of Stairway & then they went back into the finale of Watchtower. This is reason #3 I will weep bitter tears if there's no pull of this show.]

Other points of interest:
--> We pinched rude people's butts as they pushed through the crowd. If you were a pusher & you didn't announce yourself or apologize, we attacked your butt with pinchies. If you at least apologized instead of just shoving, we merely THREATENED to exact our toll. It was so fun.
--> I truly despise the smell of pot. TRULY. *gag*
--> An Olbas inhaler, those things that smell of peppermint & eucalyptus & spearmint & menthol, really cut the scent of everything else. They're meant as a natural congestion remedy, but if you have a nasty smell you can't get out of your nose, these work too. ASK US HOW WE KNOW.
--> During You & Me, the guy behind us started singing. He must've been in Glee club according to one of the Two Awesome Girls, and she was right. He was singing in an overly-dramatic, very Broadway type voice. Q: "I almost expect to turn around & see jazz hands!" She did turn around and glared at him until...well, he stopped. She MIGHT have killed him with her mind but I don't know.
--> Before the show there was a girl behind us with her dad. She was 9 and it was her first Dave show. *gape* My parents would NEVER have let me do a DMB concert at the age of 9. Ganon? If he wants to, he'll DEFINITELY get to.