Review of Dave Matthews Band Live August 23, 2010 Hollywood Bowl 8/23/2010

When you wake up the next morning and all you can say to your wife is “WOW, that was pretty amazing”, then, ahhh, you probably saw Dave Matthews last night. Dave Matthews really is that good.
Highlights:
Jam Band Related

Tim Reynolds! It is hard to overshadow Carter Beauford but Tim Reynolds on electric guitar is the one that steals the show. Tim’s tone is perfect. His rig is usually either a strat or a Les Paul through a pair of Mesa Boogie rectifiers. It sounds to me like he is probably playing through the classic mode on the Mesas. The tone is just filled with the classic woody yet nasally midrange. Reynolds job is to make the main riffs that the songs are built around stand out and he does the job perfectly and never misses a beat.

Jeff Coffin from Bela Fleck and the Flecktones really does add a lot to the jam band side of things. It is just great to hear a band that gives a platform for good musicians to play improvisation. On #41, the opening song, Reynolds, Coffin and violin player, Boyd Tinsley, all took extended solos and set a great expectation for the night.

The return to real jam band numbers didn’t come until the end of the show but WOW the last 6 or so numbers at the end was just incredible.

Highlights

Songs
My favorite Dave Matthews song is probably “Don’t Drink the Water” but in concert “Two-Step” was far and away just beyond belief. The entire end of the set, Cornbread, Two-step, You and Me, Some Devil, Why I am and Ants Marching was just jam band heaven. The band does this simultaneous punch thing so well. The full band hits hard in unison from the baritone to the bass to the kick and Dave while Reynolds keeps soloing and they just keep it all in the groove of the song and just keep going and going. The aim is to get bigger and bigger and two-step got the biggest and the baddest of them all.. The Two-step outro was very good both visually and acoustically, heavy and fast and psychedelic.

At the end of the show for the encores my son and I moved forward up by the sound board and the sound quality is so perfect. All I can say is that when I grow up, I want to be in a band that sounds like that!!!