Dave Matthews Band : Name Your Reasons Why They Are So Bad & Hated.

DMB didn't exist when I was in high school but I will confess that in 1993ish, when I was in college, they were minor local notables but not superstars.

If you saw them in a restaurant, it was okay to be mildly excited but you also had to be be cool. Like, you could maybe casually point and whisper, but you weren't supposed to go over to their table and gush at them. I am pretty sure I have said this before so I won't go over it again.

What kind of a high-school student would fall in love with this band?

Band geeks.

when I was in high school several of my photography classmates went to a DMB concert and an anecdote one of them was excitedly sharing with her peers about how she and her friends were relatively close to the stage, shouting "Dave! Daaaaave!" has stuck in my head for probably 25 years now

these were mostly preppie types, but the excited "Daaaave!" hippie-ish girl was, the last time I looked it up, a yoga instructor in southern california

DMB: come for the songs about love, stay for the songs about sex.

I remember being so disappointed when a friend who was into Sonic Youth and stuff in high school started following Dave in college. I think it was mostly about the scene, although she was a bit of a cool name geek too.

I can't hang with the music, but I've come to enjoy his interviews, he always says some weird non-sequitur shit and has good random stories. Recently on Time Crisis and Questlove Supreme.

I think if you are Dave, or Ed Sheeran, or Jon Bon Jovi or the like, you've just got to have a sense of humor and at least the guise of humbleness to counterbalance your inexplicable success.

pretty sure I've said this before but I am from Charlottesville VA, and all of these guys have the most stellar local reputations for giving back to their community bigtime (charity, donations, starting small businesses, seed money, loans, etc)

Thanks, sleeve. I am only a casual occasional visitor to CVille but I am glad to hear that. I spent so much time in terrible 90s bands at colleges along I-64; it was my formative "scene."

peak DMB era

Exactly. I can still enjoy "Satellite," which is a deeply strange piece of music and a good song. But you will not see me following his next tour or whatever.

lmao I just remembered that my parents went to a DMB show that was at a local minor league baseball stadium

me: "ok, you know I'm not really a DMB fan. this is not about that. I am just warning you that I do not think you will like the crowd at this concert"
parents: "we've been to a lot of shows I am sure it'll be fine"

after the show
parents: "that crowd was not good"

Whitecaps abound.

At one time, they were capable of very, very good live shows. Also capable of fairly shitty shows. They were a sort of band for kids who thought that jam bands were interesting to visit but not to live there.

I saw them at a club in DC in like 90 or 91 and didn’t vibe on the music but shit you could tell they were going places. It was packed and the crowd was super fired up. Not a shocker: it appeared to be a heavily collegiate audience.

do people mosh to DMB

I don't think dmb sounds like adult contemporary. I maintain "In the House of Stone and Light" is what dmb would sound like if they were truly AC.

god i hate that song thanks for making me remember it

TO FIND MY SOULLLL YA

idk "In the House of Stone and Light" sounds like faux Sting.

that is also true

the faux-Sting with the mosting

Before These Crowded Streets is the most adult contemporary sounding album, but it is also too gross and horny to qualify.

My best friend and I often belt that Sting-o chorus to each other. That song was everywhere in summer '95 and has vanished except for loyal CVS shoppers.

I saw the motherfucker perform once at a free festival our local contemporary station put on.

I left one song into his boring set to go read a guitar magazine in a bookshop. I think during his other lesser song, "Keeper of the Flame"

When I came back, Sophie B Hawkins was singing "Damn, i wish I was your lover"

it was grafted onto my subconscious in childhood

xp excellent timing!

Half of BtCS is horny. The other half could be in Hadestown.

i love it when i'm unwinding in the bistro of a courtyard inn after a successful meeting with southern regional partners, and 'in the house of stone and light' comes on, as it always helps me realign my values.

What kind of a high-school student would fall in love with this band? I always thought of DMB as a form of adult contemporary. Shouldn’t one be discovering better music in teenage years?

This is an ahistorical take; DMB built their fan base via the college party circuit.

^^ otm

yeah, thank you. My college friends were fuckin' obsessed with them.

I don't recall them having any significant visibility/popularity in college (despite plenty of jam-band/Phish action there); must have been a quirk. Don't even remember when I first became aware of DMB – I guess just via "Ants Marching" on MTV.

They were musical guests on SNL in '95, and it was like 'WHAT MATTHEWS BAND!?!?'.

the kind of person who forges an upwardly mobile yet "conscious" social identity in college and never significantly modifies it is the kind of person who remains a dmb fan for life ime.

they were my first concert. my friends dad bought us tickets, i just had to say yes. i liked them ok. i was 13. remember nothing of that night except that there was a lot of saxophone playing lol.

I once posted that "In the House of Stone and Light" was "The poor man's 'In Your Eyes' and I stand by that characterization.

White dude world-muzak preexisted Dave Matthews, and it will outlive him.

Dave, at least, was actually born in Africa (unlike Paul Simon, Martin Page, Peter Gabriel, or Sting) so maybe he has even more right to play that sound than they do.

Now I have "Satellite" stuck in my head.

Self-XPS I remember Dave wore baggy -style pants onstage and I was like, "I guess anybody can be famous now."

I had a high-school friend who went away to Miami of Ohio in the mid-90s and came back a DMB superfan. He was a theater kid more than a jock, but he gravitated toward sort of a preppy/frat-boy style in general, so it wasn't much of a surprise.

did he become a lawyer

XPS "Pyjama-styoe pants"

I learned about them in elementary school. I had a gift card to Media Play, and my high school aged sister suggested I buy Live at Luther College. I really wanted to buy Quake, but my dad believed computer games would break the computer.

This is an ahistorical take; DMB built their fan base via the college party circuit.

― the new drip king (DJP), Tuesday, August 1, 2023 2:30 PM bookmarkflaglink

seriously, the first time I even realized how rabid the DMB fanbase was, was college. I was into them as early as 8th grade and lasting through high school, but I thought I was just a nerdy weirdo. but I got to orientation sign-in and this guy was like "do you like Dave Matthews Band?" and I was like "uhh yeah" and he stood up and yelled to the other RA "HEY THIS GUY LIKES DAVE MATTHEWS BAND" and she cheered from across the hall as did like three other people.

felt really bad when I robbed their dorm later that night

of dank nugs?

Ahem. Everybody here has strong anti-DMB opinions, and I get it.

But I am pretty sure I am the only person here who almost slept with someone whose roommate almost slept with their bassist.

And I am pretty sure I am the only person here whose band opened for a band that opened for the Dave Matthews Band.

Just sayin.

did you also know the guy who drove their bus.

Neanderthal: no, but my roommate's sister's cousin's dentist's niece once slow-danced with that bus driver. So basically we're kin.

"I guess anybody can be famous now."

This should be written on Dave's tombstone.

I feel like the time I stumbled into a place in Burlington, Vermont and every third person, knowing I wasn't from there, had to explain their relationship to members of the band Phish

careful breeding, I suppose

just feel the need to mention that the university of utah is an overlooked junior partner in the network of schools that gave 90s jam bands their sentience.