The Dave Matthews Band

12/03/2010

Pitch-perfect performance @ SECC, Glasgow

SECC, Glasgow
5/5

The Dave Matthews Band are a curiously American phenomenon. Despite having sold more tickets than any other musical group over the last two decades as they constantly fill baseball parks and football stadiums across the States, their impact across the pond amounts to barely a ripple.
 
As they take to the stage of the SECC, pop, rock and funk is combined with illusory lyrics and framed by inoffensive banter, all suggesting that their popularity lies in providing a little something for everyone and the complete avoidance of treading controversial ground. But then, halfway through the fourth song, ‘Lying In The Hands Of God’, the real reason behind their success emerges. The band loosens up and clarinettist Jeff Coffin takes centre stage. Leading a jam, he starts a solo that comes alive with his breath and is guided by his hands. The improvisation is so urgent and passionate that it transcends the setting of the song and becomes a living being. Its youth is full of weaving restless vigour and frenzied notes before aging gradually as the melody slows and grows fainter, until its dramatic death note is drowned out by erupting applause.
 
Each subsequent song is blessed with a similar Mona Lisa smile moment that transforms what could easily have been a staid replay of an old track into something fresh and unique, which is born before us and can’t survive outside of the live experience.
 
Matthews’ voice is also a formidable weapon. Ranging from tender vulnerability to ferociousness, sometimes going between the two in the same line, he is a powerhouse, giving an epic stadium sized performance that threatens to blow the roof off the arena.
 
For someone who leads a band named after himself, he is surprisingly generous when stepping aside to let the other members of the septuplet take the spotlight. Boyd Tinsley on the violin and Carter Beauford on drums both provide their own ethereal highlights in a show that demonstrates the dynamo energy of a tightly-knit, pitch-perfect live performance.
 
As the two and a half hour set flies by, the mystery behind why the band haven’t attracted more than a cult following in the UK becomes clear. They’re America’s best kept secret, and those damn Yanks want to keep Matthews all for themselves.

Steven MacKenzie