There's no real point to this post, just reminiscing... no offense taken if you stop reading here. =)
Another thread made me randomly google "Dave Matthews Trax" to see what videos from Trax there are (I'm a longtime fan, 80+ shows, but not at all well-versed in what videos are where).
This was 1st video that came up, and I gotta say, it brought SO MUCH BACK!
My 1st show was 3 yrs later, Lupo's (one of the Live Trax series), and I had never heard DMB when I went (I went to see Big Head Todd, won tix from a radio station). My date and I planned to leave after BHT but decided to at least see 3 songs of this DMB and then go.
We stayed for 5 songs, and what an opening 5 songs to see live as your intro to DMB:
Seek Up
Minarets
Dancing Nancies
Warehouse
Lover Lay Down
Those first 4 remain some of my favorite songs to experience live ever, any band, and I've seen over 1,000 shows in my life (teens through 30s my friends were mostly musicians).
Aside from being blown away musically, I also remember how struck I was that the lead singer, Dave I assumed, seemed SO SPOTLIGHT-AVERSE! He sang, usually with his eyes closed, and it seemed like the moment he wasn't singing he was OUT of the center stage, over on the side, maybe partly highlighting whoever was leading (Boyd, Roi, Carter) or he was just letting the music take center stage. But I remember finding it incredibly adorable and loving what seemed like great humility or shyness from this lead singer.
I think it's a good thing that Dave obviously grew more and more comfortable as the center stage main guy, while also highlighting and boosting all the other amazing musicians sharing the stage consistently.
But this video really took me back ot my first shows and how over and over he seemed SO good, sounded great, but definitely seemed a bit not wanting to stay in spotlight any longer than he needed to....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3rvYlemlF0