Dave Matthews Band

The typical DMB concert during the Summer of 2014 was a little experimental. The band played two sets, the first featuring a cast of rotating acoustic performances of songs both old and new. The second set was a full fledged electric rock show. This set from the band’s stop in Tampa features unique versions of favorites from Snow Outside to I’ll Back You Up. We also get to hear some bowed bass in #27 and great percussion from Carter in the song Sweet. The second set features all bangers with the soaring vocals of So Right and the jazz explorations of Seek Up among the highlights. The evening ends with a great version of Good Good Time followed by You and Me.

This 2001 DMB performance from Toronto is the band’s first Live Trax release out of Canada. From the very first pulse of the heartbeat intro to Pantala Naga Pampa and Rapunzel and all the way to the last beats of Two Step, this show offers solid renditions of songs off the new album, Everyday, as well as road tested gems like JTR and Say Goodbye. The Lovely Ladies' extra vocal power elevates the performances throughout and specifically on Don't Drink The Water and Stay (Wasting Time).

The typical DMB concert during the Summer of 2014 was a little experimental. The band played two sets, the first featuring a cast of rotating acoustic performances of songs both old and new. The second set was a full fledged electric rock show. This set from the band’s stop in Tampa features unique versions of favorites from Snow Outside to I’ll Back You Up. We also get to hear some bowed bass in #27 and great percussion from Carter in the song Sweet. The second set features all bangers with the soaring vocals of So Right and the jazz explorations of Seek Up among the highlights. The evening ends with a great version of Good Good Time followed by You and Me.

Live Trax Vol. 60 takes us back to 1995, finding the band in the middle of forging a now classic sound; with a twist. David Ryan Harris, who was touring in support of DMB as part of Dionne Farris’ band, sits on electric guitar to add some firepower to Rhyme & Reason and Jimi Thing. Near the end of a segue way laced set, Dave gives a glimpse into the future with a solo acoustic version of an early Raven, with Little Thing folded in throughout. Listening back to this era, with its equal parts intimacy and intensity should be a joy for fans of any era of the band!

Tragedy has a way of putting everything into perspective, a truism that's brought into sharp relief by the Dave Matthews Band. LeRoi Moore, the group's saxophonist, died in 2008, something that shook the DMB to their core and they've responded as any working band does: by carrying on, playing gigs – including one on the day of his passing – and finishing the album they were recording at the time of his death, turning Big Whiskey & the GrooGrux King into a tribute to their fallen comrade. By saluting his spirit, DMB wind up returning to their roots, jettisoning any of the well-manicured crossover pop of Stand Up and reviving the loose-limbed jams that were their '90s specialty, a sound they've largely abandoned – at least on record – since 1998's Before These Crowded Streets. During that long, long decade between Before and Big Whiskey, DMB remained one of America's biggest bands even though much of those ten years found Matthews working through various existential crises – things got too big so he pulled away from the band, turned out a dark solo record, then came back – and his namesake band drifted along with him. Here, everything snaps back into focus: what was glossy is now clean and unvarnished; there is no avoidance of their rangy, loping rhythms or predilection for elastic solos; and these signatures – shunned on record, not on-stage – are embraced warmly, given muscle, and married to the dark undercurrents that have flowed throughout Matthews' new-millennium writing.

The Dave Matthews Band may not have released the Lillywhite Sessions – the semi-legendary soul-searching album recorded in 2000 but abandoned in favor of the heavy-handed, laborious Glen Ballard-produced Everyday – but they couldn't escape its shadow. Every review, every article surrounding the release of Everyday mentioned it, often claiming it was better than the released project – an opinion the band seemed to support by playing many numbers from the widely bootlegged lost album on tour in 2001. Since they couldn't run away from the Lillywhite Sessions, they decided to embrace it, albeit on their own terms. They didn't just release the album, as is. They picked nine of the best songs from the sessions, reworked some of them a bit, tinkered with the lyrics, re-recorded the tunes with a different producer (Stephen Harris, a veteran of post-Brit-pop bands like the Bluetones, plus engineer on U2's All That You Can't Leave Behind), added two new songs, and came up with Busted Stuff, a polished commercial spin on music widely considered the darkest, most revealing work Matthews has yet created.