08.19.09
LeRoi Moore 1961-2008
LeRoi Moore at Cricket Wireless Pavilion on Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2007. (Photo by Ryan Eilders)
It’s a year to the day since the sad event of Dave Matthews Band’s beloved saxophonist LeRoi Moore passing away. The band has done a great job honoring his memory with their tour this year, and especially with their new album Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King featuring saxophone parts by LeRoi.
Here’s a tribute video featuring a song called #34, which was the 34th track on DMB’s first major label release, Under the Table and Dreaming from 1994.
08.14.09
Song of the Week: Jack Johnson – The Horizon Has Been Defeated
I already tweeted about this song some time ago, but I’ve been enjoying playing this acoustic version on guitar so much that I wanted to talk more about it, a nice summer song that it is. Jack Johnson has been a big inspiration for me with the guitar. I found his music at a time when I was struggling with barre chords. Learning some of his songs that he plays with barre chords only, those uncomfortable chord shapes started becoming a second nature.
Sure, you could use a capo and play them with mostly open chords, but then you’d lose some of the sound and feel the left hand muting techniques bring to his songs. My guitar currently has the strings quite close to the fretboard (low action, as it is called), which makes barre chords lighter to play, as well as makes it possible to use some of the percussive techniques Jack uses.
I feel that Jack has gotten many little things right in his songs; they usually work for me very well. I think I have learned a lot about music by listening to his songs, there’s so much space in there that it’s easy to recognize different things.
This version of The Horizon Has Been Defeated is played in D with all open chords. The picking pattern is similar to what he uses in his song The News from the album Brushfire Fairytales, so it was easy to pick up after playing that song. This version of the song made it to the UK release of his album On and On (which my copy is not). But here he plays it on a radio show.
08.05.09
Amos Lee Live in Cologne
After seeing Dave Matthews Band twice, I didn’t know what more could I expect from a show. Still I was very eager to go check out Amos Lee, who I hadn’t seen before. And I was pleasantly surprised how good the solo acoustic show. Being an intimate one-man show, it was something very different from the energetic full band DMB.
The show took place at Stadtgarten in Cologne. It is a great place for music like this. It’s nice and clean and they a bar at the back to easily get some Kölsch. The opening act was Alin Coen, a young woman from Hamburg who also played guitar and performed a solo acoustic. She sang some of her songs in English, some in German. I thought it was cool to hear some songs in German because I don’t get to hear them so much. She was very well received by the audience.
Amos started the show by playing some chords, and only when he started to sing most of the audience (including me) realized that the song was the first track of his first album, Keep It Loose, Keep It Tight. He seemed maybe a little shy at first, not making much eye contact with the audience. But it quickly turned out that’s just his style to perform, and he really knew how to take his audience. He actually talked pretty much between songs and sometimes made funny remarks even during them. All in all, it was a very entertaining show.
I could recognize most of the songs he played, but I’m not (or wasn’t) that much into his music that I could have sung along beyond some choruses. I had been listening to his studio albums, but the acoustic live versions were something completely new for me. The songs worked well also that way.
Amos’ last studio album, Last Days at the Logde, was released over a year ago, and he was now promoting it in Germany. The first song off the new record was Truth, there he asked the audience to sing along the chorus, the first one of sing-alongs. Little song Bottom of the Barrel was one of my favorites. “Get right down to the bottom of the barrel and float back on top,” the lyrics just sound so cool when he sings them. Moreover, he has a good voice that suits well for small acoustic shows.
When the encore started, someone from the front row shouted “five more songs,” and that’s what he did. Maybe my favorite song of the whole night was Love in the Lies in the encore, it’s so beautiful. The hit song Arms of a Woman ended the encore. After that, I think the sound guy and the light guy had no idea if he’s going to come up again. People just clapped, they didn’t brighten the lights or put on the house music. After several minutes Amos finally came to play two more songs, obviously baffled that people were still clapping.
It ended up being quite a long show, which was good. The audience was so excited, even though he’s not the biggest name in Germany. One good thing about the German audience is how quiet they are during the songs. I go pretty much to small shows at bars, so I’m used to hearing chatter all the time, but there people were really listening.
My friend Susi also taped the show and the recording can be found on Try JM downloads area as MP3. You’ll also find the setlist there. Taping is pretty rare in these parts of the world, and it was funny standing next to a taper because you couldn’t talk to her during the show. But it was okay, since the music was so good that you could just listen.
08.03.09
DMB @ Heineken Music Hall, Amsterdam
The same post (more or less) will also be published on a Finnish language DMB blog (not up yet).
My second time seeing Dave Matthews Band, I left early for the show from Cologne with three German friends. Heineken Music Hall wasn’t that easy to find by car, but we arrived there at 2 p.m. There were already some people who had lined up for the show.
We wanted to go to the antsmarching.org pre-show party first, which was at a restaurant right behind the venue. That was a good thing to do, as we got to meet so many nice people. Living in Finland you don’t get to meet many DMB fans, so it’s always great to see others! There were many people from the States, but also from European countries. That was a GA show (with no special line for fanclub members), so I think most people wanted to go straight to the line and skip the party.
But the pre-show party was very cool and worked very well considering the show was GA. Most of us left pretty early for the line. Some people stayed, and I heard Dave had come in there to say hi (Update: I got it wrong, he didn’t go in but they met him behind the venue, see the comments for more)! Actually, I didn’t feel that bad for having missed him. He looks like a great guy under normal circumstances, but when all the people come up to you wanting an autograph and a photo, that’s something very far from normal. I met Dave at a D&T show in 2007 and I was so excited. But afterwards I started thinking how distant he had seemed, which is perfectly understandable when faced by dozen crazy fans. But now that as just a memory, I kind of want to keep Dave as that cool guy on the stage instead of “downgrading” him into a normal person. Although I’d certainly be excited if I met him again.
This is Amsterdam, so it obviously means lots of people smoking weed. Mostly Americans, maybe because we Europeans have seen the band so little that we don’t want to risk ruining our experience. So it’s not the most energetic audience here, but still a great one. And after all, it’s so much better to have some calm stoned people around compared to aggressive drunken ones.
After all the waiting the opener Little Fish starts playing. They perform a highly energetic and aggressive set, and I like it.
DMB opens with the hit song Funny the Way It Is. I was somehow expecting them to open with an old song in Amsterdam, so I wasn’t that excited with the choice. When they released the song in the spring, I just loved it. But for a long time, it was the only one of the new songs out there (as a studio version), so I guess I listened to it a little too much. And if you ask me, DMB has much better songs than any of their “hit songs.” But this is a song that everyone in the audience knows and people are so excited, which brings some of the old feeling back. Then the next song, You Might Die Trying, starts the awesome jams that go on for the rest of the night.
The first ten songs they also played in Paris. But it’s not like I’ve seen them too many times. And they play them differently. During these songs, two people stand out, Jeff Coffin on the saxophone and Carter Beauford on drums. My favorite here is Lying in the Hands of God, a longer version with crazy sax solos in the end. And Carter’s just unbelievable behind the drums, as he usually is. Smiling all the time, chewing on gum, blowing bubbles, all while playing that crazy stuff.
After Why I Am they have played all the “must play” songs of this tour. It feels so exciting, not knowing at all what the rest of the show has in store for us. I want to hear something new, something they didn’t play in Paris. I way that to a friend, and out of the blue, there comes a long version of #41 that’s just out of this world for me. It’s such an awesome live song, first the familiar lyrics that everybody is singing along very loud, then builds into those jams.
People dig the old hit song, Crash Into Me. And I get Grey Street again! New song You and Me is very beautiful. Anyone Seen the Bridge is so cool, Stefan Lessard comes right in front of us to play the groovy bass riff. Stefan’s the coolest guy of the band in many ways. We know so much more about the band thanks to Stefan’s tweets, videos, photos and so on. The bridge leads to another fake Too Much, then Ants Marching closes the set. I like the long intro to the song and the crowd is certainly into the song. This song is such a good way to close the set.
New song Time Bomb opens the encore. It starts slowly and builds into an amazing live spectacle, definitely one of the best songs of the night, and after seeing it, my favorite song off their new album, Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King. After that they play an amazing Two Step with long drum solo by Carter along with so many other cool things!
They had actually planned to close with All Along the Watchtower, but a stupid Heineken Music Hall curfew kicked in and they had to stop. How can you expect a curfew at an indoor venue? Well, I hear it’s because lots of people leave the show by train and they have to catch the last trains to get home. At the show somebody told me that Dave used to go to Amsterdam a lot when he was younger, and while busking on the streets, he was playing Watchtower so much that somebody paid him to not play it anymore!
Also Crush was another song on their original setlists that they didn’t play. But I really liked it that they played long versions of the songs instead of more songs. The amesome solos during the show really made my night. The show started a little slowly for me, but developed into such a great one. I have to say this was a better show than Paris, but as a personal experience nothing tops Paris for me, as it was my first time seeing full band DMB and I was feeling so energetic for the show. But this night the band had such a good vibe for the show themselves! They were having such a good time on the stage.
The passing of their beloved saxophonist LeRoi Moore last summer affected the band a lot. So it’s very great to see them in such a good shape now and LeRoi’s influence present so well. I like it how Stefan puts it, “Every show is for LeRoi.” They are really doing their best to honor LeRoi on the stage, which means great shows.
Many thanks to Linda of “RWF” – The Robin Williams Fansite for the great photos above. She was standing right where I was, so that’s also what I saw during the show! The setlist can be found on DMB Almanac, and there’s a taper’s recording of good quality on dreamingtree.org (requires registration, I downloaded the one by “Crumbo”). A big thanks to DMB for the great shows in Europe!
