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Old 02-23-2021, 04:33 PM   #32
anklebunker
 
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Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Nashville
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Re: ON THE ROAD - Tell Us about your Dave Matthews Adventures

Most of my DMB shows have been road trips...since the first 24 years of my life was spent in Utah where they don't play annually (I take some offense to the "godawful terrible Salt Lake City" remark above!) and the last 16 years I've lived in Nashville (the home venue Starwood Amp closed the year after I moved here).

Nothing will top 2018 as far as DMB trips go. After my first trip to Camden earlier that summer, I won the big Prizeo contest that year which included airfare, hotel & garden box tickets for 2 to the end-of-tour Hollywood Bowl show on Sept. 10 (and a post-show meet & greet with Dave backstage, and a custom Rockbridge guitar, and a digital SLR camera, and a weeklong safari trip to Kenya in 2019!).

My wife and I had already planned on traveling to Chicago on Saturday Sept. 8, to see the Univ. of Utah football team play Northern Illinois. We spent the morning and afternoon in downtown Chicago (Art Institute, Sears Tower, Cloud Gate) and then drove to DeKalb for the football game that night. Sunday morning we flew back to Nashville for a previously-scheduled event, and then late afternoon that same day we flew out to LA.

We had a great time in Hollywood doing touristy stuff, and on Monday evening we picked up the HB tix & pre-show lounge passes at will call. However they didn't give us any info about the post-show M&G. The contact at Red Light Mgmt. did connect me with Brian Calhoun (who had come out to present the Rockbridge guitar) and we set up logistics of when to meet after the show. After the encore we headed to meet up with Brian, and we walked right past Julia Roberts and her entourage. For what seemed like the longest time we couldn't find Brian, and it felt like we were going to miss our chance. But it all worked out: we found Brian who had the guitar with him, and he got us backstage. While waiting for Dave at the M&G, I met Harry Shearer (Spinal Tap, Simpsons) and John Alagia. Once Dave came out he met with all the other folks first...Brian kept us until the end. Dave was really nice, and we talked about the Kenya trip (since he had done a similar one with his family in 2017). He was gracious enough to play the Rockbridge a little bit...he played the first couple of notes of an old African tune, which I commented sounded a lot like Recently. He played the sets of notes from both songs, and described how they're different. He said Recently is the most African-sounding tune he's written.

In Dec. 2018 I went to D.C. for the show at Capital One Arena with my best friend who lives in the D.C. area. I had worked it out with my friend's wife, to surprise him with the two Charlottesville shows after D.C. He thought he was taking me back to the airport, but once we got there I told him that we were going on to C-ville. He was so stoked! But once we got underway it started snowing. We tried to take a "shortcut" from Reagan Airport to C-ville...and ended up going through a lot of back roads that had gotten pretty snowy/icy. Fortunately we made it ok and still in time before the start of the N1 show. Enjoyed Bodo's Bagels the next morning, got to be part of the Rockbridge "factory tour" in the afternoon, and then enjoyed N2!
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