Gorge = Awesome Crowd = Horrible
The Gorge shows this year were my 34th, 35th, and 36th shows. Never displeased to see the band... especially the past three years, their energy level and the showmanship has gone WAY up. I loved the new songs (it's been 8 years since I've liked new Dave!)
Here's what sucked. I camped at Getty's Cove in 2007. It was great, surrounded by DAVE FANS, nice people... etc. I got Gorge Camping this year. I've never been surrounded by so many LOUD, inconsiderate, perma-wasted, littering, destructive, NON DAVE FAN FOOLS.
Lemme just relay a couple examples of what I'm talking about. I saw some people chucking glass beer bottles from about 30 feet away at the dumpster near the exit to the venue... my friend who was with me yelled at 'em - "cause broken glass on the ground is cool!" the girl yelled back to her that she was an uptight asshole... and they continued to break bottles. It's a DAVE MATTHEWS BAND SHOW. Have you ever listened to their lyrics? The alpha male got all chest poundey when I flipped his girl off and told her I hope she has to be the one cleaning that stuff up one day.
At the end of the first night, I got back to my car... was sitting and quietly strumming on guitar while my friend and my surrounding campers got to sleep. I had to put up with an endless chain of dudebros walking by, yelling shit at me for playing guitar - making fun of me... then the totally shwasted ones would walk up and basically be loud and annoying til I gave them free beer. (at which point some still wouldn't leave despite my ignoring them) I asked one fella, humoring him, "so how was the show?" He said "I don't remember... didn't really want to come but I got VIP tickets" F*CK YOU BUDDY! I don't even know what VIP entails but this guy didn't even know where he was... or why he was there.
Third story is about the scalpers. My friend and I sold three tickets while we were there. We asked UNDER face for all of them. There were scalpers there combing the lots, buying tickets as "fans" and selling them for $150-250. There were normal dudes too driving the prices up... one of them even told my friend that he'd "take her down" when she refused his $200 ticket. I know scalping is scalping wherever you go... but it was fierce here... and seeing people fork over the money for those tickets... couldn't even feel sorry for them, they weren't being scammed, they were just willingly fueling that whole system.
Where'd the love go? Is it in another campground? There used to be kind people, actual fans... good experiences awaiting a camper at Dave shows. Now it seems to me it's just douches and dudebros who don't know a thing about Dave or what his music means. It kills me. I'm still nice at shows, I still treat it the same way I always have... I am quiet and respectful to my neighbors... I pack up my trash... I know what songs like Dive In are about.
Seriously when I started going to shows there was more granola and less Keystone. Go see Nickelback or whatever act supports your way of life and stay away from music you don't understand. That's my message to the "bros" who've adopted DMB in the past few years.
On the flip side, I did end up camping next to some really great people from British Columbia. The second day, a car full of kids drove into their campsite... I told them it was taken (their tent was still up), but they were like "who cares", so the BC neighbors double parked them in, and forced them to hang out with us til the next morning. Well they didn't hang out, they just called up their friend's little sister and tried to persuade her to bring her underage friends... so they could get them drunk.
This is a really fragmented message, I apologize to anyone who reads it through... I'm still pretty worn out from the whole weekend... no time for formatting.
One more thing - I was SICK of the Danny Barnes hate. I can't even say some of the stuff I heard the douchebros saying... they had no clue. Dave was clearly saving his voice during those songs so he could keep screaming by the time he got to Timebomb... I loved the Danny mini-sets each night.
Danny Barnes for DMB band member!
I get pumped to see so many people excited for my favorite band... but when it's for all the wrong reasons, and when those people's actions ALL WEEKEND are directly contradicting the message of the music... it's hard to try to fit in and have a good time.
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