What do you get?

What do you get when you put one lead singer who moves and sings like he has a carrot up his butt, one white mediocre saxaphone player, one violin player who looks like he should be playing guitar for a band like AFI or someone, and one drummer who seems to be really good only at playing the cymbals really loud?  You guessed it!  I mean it is pretty obvious isn’t it?  Its the Dave Matthews Band!Well……..ok, its actually the Dave Matthews Tribute Band.  And this evening my wife and I had the pleasure of seeing them live in concert!  Oh, yeah, did I mention the band was backed up by the Colorado Symphony Orchestra!  Its ok, go ahead and repeat that all back in your head again to grasp what I just said, I can wait…………… got it?  Good!  Now perhaps you understand what it is that we had to endure this evening.  But if you want the detailed account, read further.

Still with me?  Good.  So here’s the deal, I am in a Music Appreciation class at school and one of the requirements is that I go see 2 concerts this semester and 1 has to be a symphony concert.  So when I heard the Colorado Symphony Orchestra was doing a show witht the Dave Mattews Tribute Band, I decided it would be bearable.  I mean I have been a fan of the DMB for like 12 or 13 years so I figured “How could you go wrong here?”  Well, I would soon have my question answered.

As soon as the music started I knew it was going to be a long night.  The drummer was louder than anything on stage.  I mean, there was a full orchestra behind him playing and you could not hear them-at all.  And then, the main singer who tried very hard to sound like Dave………didn’t!  That is the easiest way to put it.  Dave Matthews is not what I would call the best vocalist out there but he is very unique and definately an amazing performer in his own right.  This guy who was doing Dave’s part didn’t even sing in the same octive as Dave and tried to recreate some of the things that Dave does vocally.  Look if you have ever really listened to Dave or seen him in concert, you know that he sometimes does this thing where he kind of sings out things that are not real words but somehow go well into the song or the jam the band is in (Kind of like that guy from Korn).  Anyway, this “imposter” couldn’t come close to repeating anything like it and it was kind of like hearing me try to speak Swahili to a crowd of people and acting like I am doing really good-it was terrible.  I mean really, I felt embarassed for the guy when he did  it.  So all this is going on when meanwhile, the orchestra is behind them trying to seemingly keep from laughing out loud while at the same time keeping from not getting up and leaving right in the middle of it all in disgust.

There were flashes of really good music when the lead singer didn’t spout unfamiliar giberish or the drummer was not trying to simulate the sound of lightning with his cymbals when you could hear the orchestra and the band playing together.  Very cool when that occured but it wasn’t often.  But on top of that, a Dave Matthews Tribute Band does not belong in a symphonic concert hall.  the audience that was there was really dis jointed.  There were a handful of fans of DMB and/or the Tribute band and then a lot more orchestra fans.  There is a reason DMB does not play in orchestra halls.  At a DMB concert you get people dancing around sociallizing and singing along with the  music and at a orchestra concert you get a bunch of people respectfully sitting quietly in their seats and perhaps slightly bobbing their head or tapping their foot to the music.  Those 2 things do not mix.

To be honest, if I had not gotten a sweet student discount for the seats, I would have been very upset.  I know that there were people there who spent like $80 per seat.  And some people even left in the middle of the concert.

Oh well, at least I did my homework and I will get credit for enduring it.

The funny thing is, if you  call yourselves a Tribute band, you better be really good and truly be a tribute to the band you love, but technically, they did just that because after going through all that, all I really wanted to do was pop in a CD from the real DMB and appreciate them even more.  So, maybe they did what they set off to do, make you realize how really good the real band is.  What a tribute!