DMB in Dallas: Sept 11, 2010 #dmb

[hillarygayle]

So you might have noticed that Q & I attended a concert on Saturday! :D

Q & her nephew Dylan came with me, Bryan & Ganon to Dallas this weekend. Much fun was had (Ganon thinks Dylan is the coolest & Dylan thinks Matthew is the coolest) by everyone. On Saturday, Q & I left a bit early so we could go hit Northpark Mall before the show.

We opted out of the Apple Store. Apple Stores are always crowded, but the one at Northpark Mall in Dallas is beyond crazy. It's always packed to the gills. I don't think I've ever been in it when I didn't physically bump into half a dozen people. I would have liked to play with a new iPod touch but holy cow. 

Instead, we hit the MAC Pro Store instead! (No Macs...just MAC!) I have been on the hunt for a good liquid eyeliner. I wanted something waterproof & extremely long wearing that didn't flake off the way the L'Oreal stuff does. Well, I found it. It's called "Eye Slicks" and it's all the above. I got it in 2 colors: a shiny pewter & a stark carbon black. I wanted to buy another tube of Liquid Lurex lipstick, but they were out. I'm pretty sure our MAC counter in Jonesboro will have it.

Next up, LUSH! I'd been wanting a cleanser, specifically Angels on Bare Skin. The only container they had was a BIG one, but I figured I'd use it. I also got some Tea Tree Oil (the single best toner I have ever used, bar none) and some "Color Supplement". This stuff is GREAT! This is what I've always wanted to make my moisturizer (Imperialis is my fave) tinted. Regular makeup doesn't work very well because of the formulation. This stuff is meant to mix with a moisturizer. I got it in "light yellow" even though my skin leans pink, because they didn't have "light pink". It works just fine; the "light" colors are so light that they're practically interchangable.

We still had a bit of time to kill, so we got frozen yogurt at Red Mango! Q got madagascar vanilla with mochi & dark chocolate, and I got original with bananas & mango. The original yogurt is so amazing, so delicate & tangy & surprising on my tongue, that I just can't bring myself to try any of the actual flavored yogurts. I just get original with whatever fruit tickles my fancy that day. It was GREAT with blueberries in Little Rock; I might get them to smash the blueberries next time. :)

Then we were off to the show! We drank up a lot of water, went to the bathroom (Q went into a gas station that had a skeezy bathroom, then warned me so we went to McDonald's across the street), then cut ourselves off because we knew we'd be standing in the pit from the time we got in until the time the show was over--5:30 to 11pm. And we did just that.

At 5:30pm we went through the gates, then into the reserved seating area, and then into the pit--where they took our tickets in exchange for pit bracelets! O_O!!! They were Warehouse Pit tickets; I wanted to keep those! Several of us Warehouse members began protesting, and the pit security supervisor told us to make sure & come out his exit at the end of the show & he'd give us the tickets back. We didn't get our own tix back, obviously, but whatever. I still have a Warehouse pit stub for my Box of Live Music Events Memorabilia. I need to make a shadow box or something. :)

Then we were in the pit & it was time to stake out a spot. We chose right up front (one row of people between us & the railing!) slightly to the right. We wanted to be able to get good pics of Dave, but I have a mad Jeff Coffin obsession obviously and Q is a true Rashawn Ross fangirl. They stand on stage left...so we stood toward stage left. :) We made friends with the Awesome People™ around us, who included someone I later found on Twitter via the #dmb hashtag! I actually spent most of the concert thinking she was utterly cute & how jealous I was of her haircut. Hi, @julianathursday! By virtue of it being the pit, most of the people around us were hardcore DMB fans. They new all the rare songs, all had opinions on what they wanted to hear, all knew what had been played a lot & what might get played that night. When I revealed my wish for "Rhyme & Reason" they all empathized, but also agreed with me that it was a long shot. :)

I didn't have my DSLR. I've never been in a concert pit before, and by all accounts they can get a little rowdy. That camera is worth a great deal of money & even more in emotional value, but MAN I wanted some pics worthy of our pit tickets! The problem was solved when Walter offered me his point & shoot Sony 10 megapixel camera. I played with it for a while; learned it had quite a nice zoom, tap to focus on your desired area, the ability to play with the exposure within reason...lots of decent features. Best of all it was very pocket-sized, not at all like my Hulking Behemoth (it's named Dozer after the Matrix character). So I took it. Just to test how it would do, I got a picture of Carter's Percussion Command Center™ when we first came in.

It did all right. :)

Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears opened. They aren't quite my style, but they didn't bore me. Well, no. I'll say it this way: their MUSIC is my style, but the vocals are not. Mr. Lewis himself is very James Brown-inspired, and I'm not into that vocal style. The rest of the band, however, was great. The horn section was particularly amusing, as they had the tendency to dance like 50s Motown girl backup singers. They were all men; 1 dignified looking older black gentleman & 2 younger, geeky white dudes. Dancing like the Supremes! The drummer kept losing his glasses. 

And then the band came out. They nonchalantly got their instruments ready, took their places...and then MADE MY FREAKING WORLD by opening with The Last Stop. I shrieked. Q screamed (and Q yells, she NEVER screams). The two Awesome Girls beside us screamed, one of them in a rather ear-piercing fashion. ^o^ The guy in the couple behind us roared "LAST STOP!!!" Basically, the whole pit instantly turned from a simmering pool of anticipation to a full-on boil of uncontained elation. Fans of live music will get this; it's the moment you get exactly the surprise at the show that you wanted...and they opened with it!

Here's our setlist:

The Last Stop
Shake Me Like a Monkey
Granny
Why I Am
#41
Big Eyed Fish
Seven
Can't Stop
Spaceman >
Cornbread
Write A Song
Lie in our Graves
Baby Blue
You & Me (with Ivete Sangalo guesting)
Everyday
Jimi Thing (with sexy MF'r outro)
**Encore Break**
Some Devil
Ants Marching

It was a fundamentally different show from Bonnaroo. The setlist was different: Bonnaroo was meant to appeal to the MTV or VH1 crowd. There's a wide variety of people at a music festival show, and not just DMB fans. I understand wanting to appeal to them. However, they tried appealing on a different level, too. Bonnaroo was very Tim Reynolds-centric. When there was room for a solo, it went to Tim. He's a great guitar player, but for me & many fans, that's not what DMB is about. We listen to DMB for the thickness of sound, for the variety of instruments. I want Boyd solos, & Jeff solos, & Rashawn solos. That's what we got in Dallas, in spades! We got tons of solos by everyone, and we got lots of duels. Boyd vs. Dave (one of which involved a hug!), Boyd vs. Stefan, Jeff vs. Carter, Tim vs. Boyd. Boyd was all over the stage. During Ants Marching at the end, everyone gathered around Carter's PCC™ and played at him, so it was kind of like a Carter vs. Everyone war! I screamed a lot. ^_^

Boyd is a scary, scary man who makes ridiculously beautiful music.

After the #41 Jeff v. Carter duel, Carter put out his drumstick between 2 of his cymbals & Jeff went up on tiptoes to poke the drumstick with his fingertip, "E.T. phone home" style. It was hilarious. 

Once again I am stunned by this man's talent. I do not comprehend how one can have enough AIR to do what he does. I'd like to see what his tidal volume is. In case you were wondering, no, I cannot stop being a nurse for 5 minutes. At one point during a Boyd solo on our side of the stage, I told Q I could hit that guy's vein with a 16G IV from across a room. ^o^

Yep, I'm a Jeff fangirl. Got a lot of Jeff.

I took a pic of Jeff's butt during that duel. He wears a wedding band, and normally that keeps me from oggling a dude out of respect for his wife, but DANG IT, he just kinda stood there with his back to the audience for half the song and it was too much. ^o^

Stefan gets cuter with age.  I do wish he'd been wearing his adorable glasses. Actually I'd like to see him in his adorable glasses & a very nice suit with a trench coat. GAAAAAAAAH.

I think Rashawn had a migraine. At the beginning of the show he kept holding the right front side of his forehead and closing his eyes, and when he wasn't playing he'd retreat into the shadows beside the stage left storage cases. He was glaring at the lights. Man, if you had a sound/light sensitive migraine, the DMB stage in full show is the LAST place you'd want to be. Q said "He's making me want to throw my Imitrex up on stage for him!" He disappeared for a few minutes during the first part of Granny, then when he came back to do backup vocals he seemed a bit better. After that he perked up a bit more with each song, & by the time they played Can't Stop he was hamming it up with everyone else. 

I'm quite sure this is Rashawn's "Is he REALLY dancing like that again?" look. ^o^

Ivete Sangalo: meh. I didn't like her voice, I didn't like her outfit, and I wasn't crazy about Whacky Flag Girl. Ms. Sangalo is from Brazil & apparently so was one of the fans in the pit. When Ms. Sangalo came on stage, a girl behind us worked her way in front of us (some might say "pushed") to hold up a Brazilian flag. Q & I actually stepped back to let her, because we saw the flag & figured it was a "This girl is trying to get the attention of the singer from her country" thing, & that she'd leave after Ms. Sangalo left the stage. We were right. She held the flag up a lot, though, & basically blocked everyone's view of the stage. -_- We were not amused. She tried to throw it on the stage at one point, but had not wadded it up well enough & security gave it back to her. I was {this close} to tying it in a knot for her so she'd get it on the stage & stop holding it up. Turned out Q was thinking the same thing. We SO share a brain. The crowd had a collective "WTF" moment when she started singing. As I posted on the WDS forums, we were like "Um, can Dave sing now? Or Rashawn? Or hell, let TIM sing...just get her out of here!"

Odd note: During Everyday, when we were all singing the #36 lyrics (oh my goodness that was such fun! I'd never gotten to do that before; singing loudly as PART of the performance with the rest of the audience!), it looked like Jeff, who was singing with the audience part, was singing someone's name. It didn't look like "Hani, Hani" or even "Honey, honey". Interesting.

And of course during Jimi Thing, when Rashawn was soloing, I saw this happening on the stage:

I knew my camera, which I had run down, would have enough battery left for 3 or 4 pics if I snapped them quickly. So I stood up on the metal flooring that went across in front of the railing, got the camera out, & went to my tiptoes over the heads of the people in front of me. They looked at me like "Dude wtf?" and I told them "He's about to--have you ever seen him do this live?" and they were like "Do what?" and I started to laugh & said "WATCH JEFF." And then he did this, as he usually does...

And the people who had never seen it all went "WHAT THE HELL?!" as they always do. No matter how many DMB shows you see, there's always someone who's never seen Jeff do the 2 saxophones thing, and it is always SO. MUCH. FUN. to see someone see that for the first time.

So obviously it was great. We were wiped out and starving, so we stopped & got Burger King on the way home. We each drank two bottles of water and I'm pretty sure we were asleep within 2 minutes of our heads hitting the pillows. It was FUN TIMES, y'all. Now, if only the band would add a date closer to Arkansas during November!   

 

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